


Golden Hour

by backfire



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Road Trips, sometimes a family is 5 lost teenagers and a shitty soccer mom car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 78,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backfire/pseuds/backfire
Summary: On the open road, Allie wakes up and Harry learns to breathe.
Relationships: Harry Bingham/Allie Pressman
Comments: 95
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is 100% brought to you by kacey musgraves. yee _(and i cannot stress this enough, though this fic has nothing to do with cowboys or anything country)_ haw.

Allie has no idea how summer’s almost over.

She can’t even remember it passing by. There’d been graduation, which had been a hot, sticky affair out on the Centurions football field. Girls who hadn’t thought it through wore heels that sunk into the grass and Allie’s cheap, nylon robes had clung to her ankles over her dress. It hadn’t been anything special. She can’t recall much about it other than a hush falling over the crowd once her name had been called for her to receive her diploma up on the makeshift stage. The principal had taken her hands in his briefly, which he hadn’t done for anyone else, squeezed, and smiled at her. She guessed that was supposed to be sympathy, or something.

People didn’t know how to act around her anymore. They’d parted for her when she moved towards the bleachers after they all tossed their caps into the air, stopped patting each other on the back and hugging when they saw her walking by.

After the ceremony, her parents had whisked her away before she could mingle with anyone, saying they had reservations for a celebratory lunch with Allie’s grandparents who came to town for the occasion. Allie had a feeling that they just couldn’t take the stares and the whispers anymore; that’d been fine by her, because neither could she. Most of her old friends had graduated last year, anyway, so there’d been no one important she needed to say goodbye to that she wouldn’t see over the summer.

Afterwards, June and July and most of August is honestly unmemorable. Becca and Sam and Will come around on a rotating basis, probably to check up on her or whatever. She’s just a little bitter about it and she wonders if they have some kind of schedule or something, but she still goes with them when they drag her out for lunch or to the pool or the mall or wherever else.

The rest of the time, she sleeps a lot and sits around at home and binges bad reality TV and tries not to think about the concept of packing for New York. Her parents never say anything about it. She’s on season five on Love Island; somehow, watching these shitty, fake people prance around in their shitty, fake paradise makes her feel a little better.

Cassandra would have hated it. 

  


**

  
Cassandra died in March, two weeks after she’d gone back to New Haven from spending spring break at home.

A random attack that turned full failure in the night, apparently, that had gone unnoticed by her roommate until it was too late.

Allie had pretty much just gotten used to life without her at home in the months between fall and spring semesters. And then for the holidays she was back, and Allie hadn’t been as torn up at the thought of her leaving, like she was the previous summer. Spring break seemed like even less of a big deal than Christmas and New Years, and she made fun of Cassandra for coming back to West Ham instead of going somewhere fancy with her new college friends. And she wasn’t even sad when the break ended after just two weeks; she figured if she’d already made it through most of the year without Cassandra—which was hard at first but had become easier after she got accustomed to it—then she could easily do it again until summer.

It’s weird, because they’d literally _just_ seen each other. And then just like that, Cassandra was gone. Forever.

Allie hadn’t cried when they’d all gone together as a family to drop her off back at Yale, two weeks prior. Maybe she should have. 

  


**

  
Near the end of August, Becca drags her to go to the movies. Allie agrees because that’s an easy activity; all she’ll have to do is sit there and watch and not talk in the dark.

It’s some indie film, because of course Becca chooses that over a superhero action blockbuster or whatever, and Allie sort of dimly registers that it’s supposed to be sad and artful as she’s watching it. She zones out, and thinks about how she’d almost prefer it if it were some mindless action thing. Cheap reactions, elicited by explosions and car chase sequences and big fight scenes. Easy to process.

Afterwards, Becca wants to go to the food court in the attached mall. She drove the both of them here, and Allie doesn’t want to be a jerk and make Becca drop her off, so she agrees and they get curly fries and milkshakes, even though she’s not hungry.

“Did you like the movie?”

“It was okay,” Allie says, not wanting to offend in case Becca really liked it, or something. The truth is, she can barely even remember what happened on the screen. A lot of people talking to each other, close ups of faces or panoramic scenery shots. Allie’s eyes had glazed over about twenty minutes in, and she’d let her mind wander to what was happening on Love Island, thinking about how the couple she was rooting for seemed to be the ones who might get kicked off soon. That’s always how it turns out.

“I agree,” Becca says, to Allie’s relief. “The acting kinda sucked. But the cinematography was peak, that’s the main reason I wanted to go anyway.”

“Totally,” Allie agrees, trying not to feel fake about it. She knows Becca really cares about this sort of thing. If she says the cinematography was good, then it’s probably true.

Part of Allie is wishing she’d paid more attention to the movie, though, because then they could talk about that for a little longer instead of talking about real life. But Becca doesn’t do anything Allie’s particularly dreading, like ask her about her future plans or if she’s packed yet or say shit like “can you believe we’re going to _college?_ ”

“I’m having a party at my place tomorrow,” she informs Allie, wiping salt and grease from her fingers. “As a sort of goodbye, you know?”

“Isn’t that what graduation was for?”

Becca rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but my party will actually be fun. And it’s the last time I’m ever gonna see a lot of these people, probably, since we’re leaving the next day. Right?”

Allie knows what Becca’s doing—she’s asking if Allie’s still planning to come on the road trip. 

It’s all they could talk about over winter break, when Becca got her early acceptance to the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Which is a huge fucking deal, basically all her dreams come true. And then Sam had gotten into UCLA and all the excitement around that spun the idea of a cross-country road trip between the four of them, a last hurrah for their little group of Connecticut kids before everyone goes their separate ways, spread out along the coasts: Becca, Sam, Allie, and Will.

And then Cassandra died and Allie stopped thinking about the trip, even though she knows the rest of them have been making preparations for it all these past months, with her accounted for in the planning.

She hasn’t really thought about it all summer, either, to be honest. Her parents mentioned it offhand once in July, when Sam and Becca were over and they overheard the two of them discussing it. Allie hadn’t been paying attention then, just made some kind of humming noise when her mom had said, “It’ll be nice to spend that time with your friends, hon.”

“Allie?” Becca says, snapping her back from her thoughts. “Right?” She sounds unsure now, and Allie bites her lip. Distantly, she feels bad for making Becca worry.

“Right.”

Becca sits back in her seat, placated with the response. “Good. And you’ll come to the party, too?”

Allie sighs. But Becca has that worried look on her face again, the one Allie knows they all exchange behind her back or when they think she’s not paying attention. She has mixed feelings about it most of the time, but right now it’s making her feel guilty. “Yeah, why not?” she says, plastering on a small smile.

Becca smiles super bright and sips her milkshake happily. Maybe that alone is worth the price of her actually attending. 

  


**

  
The last time Allie had gone to a party of any kind was over winter break.

Beforehand, she’d gotten into a huge argument with Cassandra—something stupid about where she should be applying for schools. Cassandra thought Allie was settling by picking UConn as her target school and not even bothering to apply to several other places—not bothering to apply to Yale, like her, was the subtext that Allie read there. Allie shot something back about not always needing to follow in her footsteps or whatever, and Cassandra said that Allie just wasn’t focusing herself and that she was perfectly capable of going somewhere better than UConn if she actually decided to give a shit. Which had pissed her off, because like, UConn isn’t even a _bad_ school, and how insulting is that to everyone else planning to go there?

(It definitely hadn’t been Allie’s dream school, per se, and so what if it felt like a safe option? What’s wrong with wanting safety?)

In the end, Allie had ended up storming off. Luke or someone else had told her about the party, since everyone who graduated was home for winter break. It was Harry Bingham’s party, so she and Cassandra weren’t explicitly invited, but Allie didn’t care. She went.

The party was...a mess, to say the least. She tries not to think about it if she can help it.

The next day, without telling anyone, Allie submitted a last minute application to NYU. Her actual dream school.

The day she got her acceptance letter in March was also the day Cassandra died. 

  


**

  
When Allie gets home from the theater and the mall with Becca, she passes by her mom in the kitchen.

“How was the movie?”

She shrugs. “Fine.”

Her mom doesn’t seem happy with that one-word answer, so Allie adds, “It was more of Becca’s thing. I couldn’t really get into it.”

She doesn’t look that much more satisfied, but Allie’s given her actual sentences today, so she seems to take what she can get. “You want something to eat?”

“Nah, I ate with Becca.” Even though curly fries and a milkshake can hardly be counted as dinner, but Allie has no appetite. Hasn’t really had one for a while. “Plus popcorn.” And then she adds, remembering the detail, “I almost got pickled jalapeños, too.”

Cassandra’s favorite. Her mom suddenly looks like she might cry. Allie frowns, and then goes up to her room, where she plans to stay for the rest of the night.

It’s like she’s not allowed to talk about Cassandra. None of them are. Not even the slightest reference, like Allie had just made. Sometimes her mom starts tearing up just looking at her. One time before the end of the school year, Allie had blown her hair straight on a whim and her mom couldn’t even bear to see her. Even her dad had gotten choked up when he told her, in a strangled voice, to have a good day at school. Allie had ended up dunking her head under the bathtub spigot before leaving and tying her wet hair up in a ponytail, curly once again.

She sighs, and lies back on her bed. In her room, all her stuff is still scattered around, with a stack of unfolded cardboard boxes stacked by the wall adjacent to the door. Her clothes are still hanging in the closet, draped against the back of her desk chair, hung on the hooks on the door. Books and tchotchkes and random things still lay on the shelf and the desk. Her string lights are still lining the windows and her wire bed frame.

The only thing that’s different are the polaroids and photos that had previously been stuck on her wall, in a purposeful grid, each plastic photo sheet lined with a measured amount of space in between. Cassandra had helped her map it out when Allie was fifteen and saw the idea on Pinterest somewhere, using their dad’s old level and tape measurer. She’d known just how big to make the whole thing so that there would be enough space on either side of the wall, making sure it looked symmetrical, and she’d taught Allie how to add new rows for new polaroids without having them look out of place.

About a month after the funeral, Allie had come home to find her mom in her room, in the process of carefully unsticking every polaroid that had Cassandra in it and putting them in a neat stack inside a shoebox. The pattern was a grid no longer, now just a random assortment of polaroids that were either of Allie with people like Will or Becca or Sam, or otherwise random scenery shots that she’d thrown in for variety.

“Here,” her mom had said, handing her the box with the lid on, her voice quavering. “For when you’re ready.”

Allie hadn’t thought there was anything wrong with having them up in the first place, but she didn’t say that, just took the box silently and then placed it under her bed after her mom left the room, wiping at her eyes. She could have opened it up and replaced them on the wall, but she didn’t do that, either.

After that, all the photos of Cassandra that had been around the house also disappeared, put into a plastic bin and stored away in the staircase storage cupboard, for when they were all “ready.” It wasn’t lost on Allie that of the few photos remaining, hardly any contained her alone, other than an old picture day photo from elementary school. In it, she’s missing a front tooth that Cassandra had yanked out for her the day before, both of them morbidly fascinated by the blood before their mom had caught them and made them clean it up.

In her back pocket, her phone buzzes. She pulls it out, holding the device straight up in the air to stretch her arms. It’s from Sam.

`**Sam Eliot:**  
heard ur coming tomorrow!!! :) don’t 4get to pack before, in case u get too wasted to do it after lol`

Shit. They’re leaving for the road trip in two days. The morning after the party. Allie doesn’t know why she didn’t think it was that soon, even while she and Becca talked about it in the food court earlier today. She texts Sam `’thanks for the reminder. see you tmrw.’` and tosses her phone into her sheets and, with a groan, picks herself up out of bed.

She can’t seem to bring herself to pack for New York, but she figures she can at least pack for this. 

  


**

  
Allie ends up falling asleep, as she’s wont to do these days, before she can finish packing and has to continue the morning.

She doesn’t really think about what she’s throwing into the duffel as she does so, tossing random things in a haze without folding them or really looking at what the items are.

Last summer, before Cassandra had left for Yale, she read Marie Kondo’s book and became obsessed, did all the stupid shit with touching every object you own and asking if it “sparked joy” or whatever. Allie had thought it was funny and played along, with the promise that Cassandra wouldn’t try and get rid of any of her things. And maybe Allie’d had a little motive too, in that she had her pick of Cassandra’s clothes that she always thought looked cuter on her anyway. She ended up with about a quarter of the things, most of them never touched by Cassandra because they hadn’t really been her style in the first place, and the rest of it got dropped off at Goodwill.

Cassandra’s suitcases were packed with the Konmari method too, everything folded into neat thirds that stood up vertically, like file folders, color coded and sorted by category in packing cubes they got off Amazon. Shirts in this one, dresses here, jeans here, skirts here. It was fun—they played music while they did it, and laughed their asses off when they unearthed a bunch of Cassandra’s old middle school clothes shoved in the back of her closet.

After she left, her room had been practically bare since they got rid of so much, and everything else Cassandra decided was worth taking to school with her.

Allie has no idea what happened to all that stuff after—the clothes, the books, the shoes. There are photos too, Cassandra’s polaroids. A lot of them are the matching versions that go along with Allie’s random scenery shots, like two halves of a single picture. She wonders if they’re still sitting in Cassandra’s dorm room, untouched, unmoved. She wonders if the school threw them all out. She wonders if her parents took everything and shoved it into another box under the stairs. She wonders why she never thought to ask.

The clothes thrown into her own duffel now, Allie realizes, are all wrong. They’re winter sweaters and long pants and mismatched socks, totally fucking random because she hadn’t been paying a cent of attention.

She starts feeling hot behind her eyes and presses her lips together tightly. Why is this affecting her so much? They’re just fucking clothes.

She goes to turn her bluetooth speaker on, puts on a random Spotify playlist, and dumps everything out to start over. The music helps; it’s some top 40s playlist, mindless and upbeat and all about fun or love or sex or whatever. Easy stuff. 

The new clothes, she picks with care—her cutest summer outfits mixed with functional things like leggings and sports bras and sweatshirts, since she knows they’re probably going to try to camp outside for at least one of the nights.

Becca texts her sometime in the middle of her frenzy: `wear something hot tonight, see u soon mwah <3`.

Since that seems to fit with the theme of her activities, Allie takes the words to heart and picks out a pair of high waisted shorts and a white crop top and some white tennis shoes. It’s the most effort she’s put into her appearance since school ended. She’s been living in cotton Soffe shorts and t-shirts, even when going places like the movies with Becca.

The shoes had been Cassandra’s; she didn’t like them because she thought they made her look like a nurse, but Allie thought they were cute. 

She stares at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door for a long time and wonders if it’s weird for her to wear a pair of her dead sister’s shoes to a party with all their old friends. She ends up kicking them off, replacing them with a pair of her own sandals. Then she brushes her eyebrows out—Cassandra had always called them her best feature, and privately, Allie always agreed—and puts on some tinted lip balm.

Her mom raises her brows at her when she comes downstairs, but doesn’t say anything; she seems to have caught on that saying anything at all about Allie’s behavior to Allie’s face won’t lead to anything. Not that Allie’s acting out, or anything. The opposite, practically.

“Going to Becca’s party?” she asks. Allie makes a face—how does she even know? Do Becca and her mom talk, or something?

“Yeah.”

“I hope you have fun,” her mom says, and Allie can tell she sincerely means it. For some reason, it makes something sad twinge in her stomach. “And you’re all packed for tomorrow?”

“Yep. Just finished.”

“Okay. I’ll let your father know.”

She doesn’t know why her dad needs to be filled in on her daily activities like this, but she doesn’t feel like arguing or getting into it, and she doesn’t say anything as she leaves the house, even though her mom calls out, “Love you!” as she’s heading out the door. 

  


**

  
It’s still too early to go to the party, but Allie has it in her head that she’ll head down to the Dollar Tree first. Will’s been working there for almost a year now, because there’s a bus stop about five minutes away from the plaza where it sits that he can easily get to from his house outside of town, which is not an easy coincidence. Allie told him in the fall that she didn’t mind driving him to and from work if he couldn’t find any openings in the plaza, but Will had declined and she’d understood why. And then he landed the Dollar Tree job, so it didn’t matter in the end anyway.

Hardly anyone’s inside when she enters, the air conditioning immediately blasting chilled air into her face, a bit too strong compared to the lazy late summer heat outside. She wanders around the aisles for a bit before she finds Will, up on a step stool re-stocking some shelves of random phone accessories.

“Hey guy,” she says to him while his back is still turned towards the shelves. He turns to look down at her, seems surprised to see her there. This is the first time she’s come to visit him in...well, since March. She used to come all the time before that.

“Allie,” says, stepping down from the stool. “You look great.”

He’s saying it just because she literally hasn’t worn anything like this in ages and the juxtaposition is kind of stark, not because he means anything funny, she knows. They tried, the two of them, being together last summer. It barely lasted into the school year before they figured out it wasn’t really right. Allie thinks their friendship has suffered a little because of it, but she doesn’t necessarily regret it, though she does miss having a best friend sometimes. “Thanks. Wanted to see if I could steal you for the night, for Becca’s party?”

She doesn’t want to go alone. Even though Becca and Sam and all her old friends will be there, but...she just thinks she’d feel better if Will was there with her, too. Like she said, she misses having a best friend.

Will clicks his tongue. “Nah, can’t, I’m closing tonight. I didn’t know you were going, though, that’s great.”

“Oh...okay. No problem,” Allie says, trying not to feel disappointed. Will looks torn, fiddling with the clipboard in his hands and glancing around to the opposite corner of the shop, where she knows his manager’s office is.

“Maybe I could ask off, I don’t need the hours that much anymore,” he says hesitantly.

“No, no, that’s okay,” Allie says, waving her hands at the wrists. “I was gonna go either way, so. It’s fine, I can go alone.”

“Yeah?” Will seems reassured by this. Allie doesn’t know why everyone’s so desperate to make sure she attends this party. “And you’re still coming on the road trip too, right?”

Will’s been looking forward to this trip almost as much as Becca and Sam—maybe even a scooch more. A chance to finally, finally escape from the clutches of his shitty life in the West Ham outskirts, even for just a little while. A taste of freedom, which he’s never really had. He’s been working his ass off these months to save up gas and lodging money for it, even though they all told him that wasn’t necessary, but he’d insisted. That’s why Allie’s willing to let him clock as many hours as he needs instead of going to the party with her.

“Yeah, I’m still coming.” Surely Becca’s told Will as much already, Allie thinks. “Just finished packing this afternoon, actually.”

Will smiles at that, a rare thing now that minimum wage retail work saps most of his energy away. “Awesome. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

She’s not going to share how she thinks they might actually have more fun without her dragging the mood down. She just smiles back and says, “I’ll let you know if anything crazy happens tonight, ‘kay?”

“It’s Becca. Something crazy usually happens.”

Allie huffs a small laugh—Becca has a wild streak in her, that’s for sure. Though Allie wouldn’t know one way or another if it’s been acting up in recent months. She seems a lot calmer to Allie, now that she’s college-bound, more subdued. They’re all doing some growing up, apparently. Some faster than others, she muses, looking at Will grab a price tag gun from the metal shelf and begin putting stickers onto the merchandise.

“Well, I know _I’m_ not gonna be the one doing anything crazy,” she says, poking at some of the cheap iPhone charging wires in their plastic packaging. They could probably stand to take a couple of those for the trip, actually.

“I don’t know, Allie,” Will says, putting the pricing gun down and straightening up. “I think you could do with some crazy right now.” He’s keeping his tone purposefully light, but something about his face makes Allie think he means it. He gives her one of those sad smiles then, the ones that remind her that she has something to be sad about. She’d been in a comparably good mood before, just from getting to see him, but that vanishes quickly. He doesn’t mean to do it on purpose—none of them do, she knows, but they still _do it_ and she feels weird and bad about it every single time.

“I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow morning, then,” she says, now anxious to be alone.

“For sure.”

He goes back to pricing and she turns, can’t get back to her car fast enough. If she’s really going to the party tonight, which she’s obligated to by now since she’s told everyone she would, she needs some time to sit in her car and, like, mentally prepare—whatever that entails—for that amount of social interaction.

She’s never had to put this much thought into something as simple as going to a party before. 

  


**

  
After Allie lies in her car for several minutes with the seat back pushed all the way down, the radio turned up and vibrating against the cushions, she finally leaves the Dollar Tree plaza parking lot and drives to Becca’s house.

It's still relatively early, but Allie's kind of hoping that she can make a quick appearance, stick around enough for Becca to be satisfied, and then go home so she can have a good night's sleep in her own bed for the last time before they're set to leave. After that, it'll be nothing but motel rooms and sleeping bags for—what, eight, nine days? Allie's not really too clear on the actual game plan. She assumes the others have taken care of it. She doesn't even have her flight from LAX back to Connecticut booked yet, though she has her parents' credit card information because they trust her and told her she could do it whenever.

The door is ajar when she goes up to the front, probably on purpose. Becca's parents had left earlier in the week for their annual summer trip, this year to Spain. They've been leaving Becca on her own in these spurts for ages now; it used to amaze Allie, just how independent she was. Did everything by herself, including putting her portfolio together and applying to school, never really asking anyone for help.

"You actually look hot!" Becca says when she hugs Allie at the door. "You listened to me!"

"She's right," Sam signs, emerging from the living room. "You do." He pinches Allie's cheek, which he used to do all the time when they were younger and Allie had a much rounder face, before she suddenly lost all her baby fat somewhere over the course of junior year. Allie laughs and bats his hand away.

"You guys ready for tomorrow?" she asks.

Sam and Becca exchange a glance. "You're really coming?" Sam signs. Allie gives him a funny look.

"Yeah, of course. I said I was, didn't I?"

"Well, we just weren't sure..."

"Obviously she's coming," Becca says, hitting Sam hard on the arm and giving him a look that clearly says _'way to be subtle.'_ Allie shifts on her feet, uncomfortable. "We're trying to leave before noon, so neither of us are getting too crazy tonight," Becca continues, as if nothing's wrong. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy yourself, you don't have to drive tomorrow." She winks and taps the side of her nose, like Allie's supposed to know what that means.

There are a couple people already here when she ventures further into the house. Luke and Helena are among them, and immediately she feels on guard. She hasn't seen either of them since winter break, probably at that party she wasn't supposed to have gone to. Well—no, that's not precisely right. Helena had been at the funeral. Allie didn't speak to her then; she didn't really speak to anyone that day.

Helena catches sight of her and gives her this really long, really tight hug, pulls back and looks at her with a sad smile. Allie shifts her eyes away, towards the floor instead. "It's so good to see you," Helena says, sincerely.

"You too," Allie replies, though it doesn't sound anywhere near as sincere.

She doesn't even want to attempt to say hi to Luke if this is what it's going to be like. At least all the people here who graduated with her are used to simply avoiding her at this point. The rest of them, the class that graduated last year, haven't seen Allie since either last summer or over winter break, and she really, really doesn't want to have to go through the entire pity song and dance with all of them tonight.

She makes some excuse to extract herself from Helena, grabs a drink of whatever kind of jungle juice is sitting in the pitchers on the kitchen island, and retreats to the bathroom by the main laundry room. The drink is sorely needed if she's expected to last the night, and she finishes it while sitting on the closed toilet lid, listening to the volume in the house grow and grow as more people fill in and music starts playing. She puts her head in her hands, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes until she sees tiny pinpricks of light.

Why is she being like this? Why can't she just act normal around people, and vice versa? It's been five fucking months.

When she leaves the bathroom, the first floor is nearly full of people. Most of them she recognizes, but there are a few here and there from other schools. Becca's always been popular, the kind who easily connects with people, floating among them all like a friendly butterfly, though she's only really close with their little core group. The crowd does nothing to ease her tension, though, and Allie tries not to meet anyone's eyes. She actually considers leaving, even though she's barely been here an hour, but when she peeks out the window to the driveway, her car is boxed in. Stupid of her to have parked it there in the first place.

She goes back to the kitchen for a refill. Maybe she's just not drunk enough yet.

Three drinks later, and she is indeed starting to feel a little better. Enough to start talking to people, at least, like she normally would have done. Allie likes to consider herself a friendly person, and she likes meeting new people. Or at least she used to—but she's got a pleasant buzz going on and suddenly the crowd seems less pressing, more welcoming. She has no idea where Becca's gone, and she thinks she sees Grizz around somewhere and means to go say hi, but she gets distracted when a kid from Ridgefield starts talking to her.

Allie registers belatedly that he's flirting after he asks if she's from around here, because the answer to that is an obvious yes. But she's in a good enough mood to flirt back a little, which makes her feel like her old self again. Not that she was a huge flirt or anything before, but it’s, like, a normal teenage activity to do. And she kind of likes it, the way he leans in, asks what she's drinking, tells her he likes her shorts. They _are_ good shorts. He asks how old she is, which is a tad creepy, even though he's probably just making sure he's not accidentally hitting on a sixteen year old or something. She informs him she's eighteen, she just graduated, and he tells her he's just finished his freshman year and is in West Ham to visit his extended family for a little while before the semester.

Then he asks her, "So where are you going to school?"

"NYU," she tells him, and he nods, impressed, which makes her feel good. "You?"

"Up by New Haven," he says, which is code for Yale for when kids are being snobby and fake-modest and don't want to just outright say Yale. Allie makes the connection and suddenly it's no longer fun.

If he's the same age as Cassandra...and they're both from around the area and he has family in West Ham...oh God, did he know her? He had to have known her, right? Does he know _Allie_? Does he realize she's the sister of the freshman girl who was literally found dead in her dorm room bed, the news spreading like wildfire all over campus within the span of a few hours?

She can't do this anymore. She gives the guy (had he even told her his name? She thinks he did, but she can't for the life of her remember it) some lame excuse about needing to use the bathroom and bolts.

Outside, in Becca's backyard, the air is warm and humid from the late summer night, but it still helps as she takes deep breaths to try and calm herself. Why does she have to live in this vicious cycle? When she wants to talk about Cassandra, like with her parents, she's not allowed. When she wants to forget and have fun, there's something that inevitably reminds her. It's cruel, she thinks, cruel and unfair and all she wants right now is to be a normal fucking teenager at to a normal fucking end-of-the-summer party having a normal fucking time.

She sits down heavily on the stone patio steps, gaze tilted up towards the sky. There aren't that many of them here, with all the light pollution, plus there are a few scattered clouds, near indiscernible from the dark sky but for their soft, hazy edges outlined against the black. She expects they'll do some kind of cliche stargazing activity on the road trip, out in one of the big, square states where no one lives.

Allie still has no clue if she's dreading the road trip or if she's excited for it. On one hand, the prospect of leaving her house and going out to see the country, to places that have none of the weight and memories and significance of the past seems extremely appealing. They live in a big country, and she's seen very little of it. On the other, she'll be spending that entire time with Becca, Sam, and Will, who _do_ know the weight she's carrying around. And Allie loves her friends, she really, really does, but...she just doesn't know if she's the kind of person who's equipped to go on a trip and enjoy it, anymore.

There are a few people outside with her, milling around and drinking, not paying her any mind; there's not much to do out here because Becca's backyard is little more than a fenced-in square. Not like Harry Bingham's backyard, with its fire pit and swimming pool and lounge chairs that have letter "B" monogrammed onto their decorative pillows. Allie had been right that Becca wasn't getting into anything too crazy; by all accounts, this is the tamest party she's attended in ages. Nothing like the one Harry had over winter break.

Allie showed up to that one fuming and angry, angry enough to drink and to not want to stop drinking, to prove some weird point to someone who wasn't even around to witness it. Probably the only person drunker than she was that night was Harry himself.

"Sitting out here all alone?" someone says above her. She moves her gaze away from the few visible stars, towards whoever's talking. It's Harry, as if manifested by her thoughts, standing there on the step above her, his hands in his pockets, noticeably not holding a drink. She can guess that one of the other guys, Jason or Clark or someone, told him about the party tonight.

He looks older. In both a good and bad way, because his face is even more chiseled than she thought it could get, and he looks leaner, more filled out, everything about him _more_ , in a way that she hadn’t known was possible because he already had it pretty damn good in the first place. But he also looks...tired. It's been eight months since she saw him.

He must have heard about what happened since then, though he didn't come to the funeral—he wasn't invited. Why would he have been?

Allie's also heard vaguely about some of the things that have happened to him since then, though she doesn't know the details. All she knows is the two of them have had it pretty bad in varying degrees since their last encounter.

"I don't know how to talk to people," Allie tells him truthfully, because she's just not in the mood to put up a front any longer. Especially now that the drinks are starting to wear off. "And people don't know how to talk to me."

"Ah," he says, moving to sit down next to her. "I remember that. It fucking sucks." She looks at him curiously, before she remembers—right. His dad died, almost two years ago now. And then she feels like an asshole for having forgotten. She didn't go to that funeral either, wasn't invited. Why would she have been? "People suddenly don't know how to act around you. Like they're not sure if you still know how to talk and do shit besides be a walking pity magnet."

"Yeah," she says, feeling weirdly seen. "Yeah, exactly. Does it—" she hesitates, wondering if she's crazy for soliciting grief advice from Harry Bingham, "—does it ever get better?"

He exhales a dry laugh. "You're asking the wrong fucking person."

She smiles wryly. "If I ever acted like that to you, back then, I'm sorry.”

"If you did, then I honestly can't remember," he says, shrugging.

That doesn't make her feel particularly better or worse. She leans her elbows back against the pavement on the next stair up; Harry's eyes follow the movement, and she can tell he's looking at her like he thinks she's hot. But he doesn't make a comment about it, like a few others have, because this isn't that far off from how she looked last time. This is just how she exists in his mind, which she likes. He hasn't seen her be a careless, spiraling slob for the past few months.

Is it bad that she's kind of flattered he's still interested? Even though last time...he's got to have some iron-clad confidence. Or maybe it's ego. Or maybe he genuinely can't remember; he was spectacularly drunk, then. And obviously going through a lot.

"Why'd you come here tonight?" she asks him. Harry's been back in town for a while now, the length of the summer so far, at least. Longer than that, if rumors are true. Despite that, she's heard hide nor hair from him; given, she's not exactly the best gauge for popular goings-on.

He looks down his lashes at her, eyes dropping to the exposed skin around her midriff and legs, but then his face darkens into something more serious. "Just had to get out of the house," he mutters, sounding bitter about something. "Felt like I was gonna blow my fuckin' brains out like my dad did."

Okay...that's dark, Allie thinks. She's definitely not at that stage in her process, or whatever, yet. Where she can joke about it, let alone make jokes that extreme. If it even is a joke; Harry's not smiling.

"Well hey," she says, the idea striking her suddenly, spontaneously. She decides to act on it, because it's something the old Allie—the _old_ , old Allie, from before Cassandra's body ever betrayed itself—would have done. "A bunch of us are going on a road trip tomorrow, here to LA. Pretty sure we have room in the car for one more person, if you're looking to get away for a bit."

"Oh yeah?" Harry asks. He only sounds mildly interested. "Who's going?"

"Me, Becca, Sam, and Will. It's to drop Becca off at USC and Sam at UCLA; Will and I are flying back here after."

"Are you guys stopping in Vegas?"

"To do what? Go to the hotel buffets? We're all only eighteen."

Harry rolls his eyes. "I think I'll have to pass," he says, not unkindly. "But thanks for the offer."

It's better that he responded this way, Allie thinks. There was no part of her that thought Harry might actually join them, and she didn't have a clue what was going through her mind when she asked him in the first place. Who is she to invite someone on their trip, when she’s barely been involved in any of the planning? When Sam himself said they weren’t sure she was even still coming?

But there was just something...lonely, about the way they were both sitting and staring into nothing while talking morbidly about dealing with loss.

"Suit yourself," she sighs, and then fishes her phone from her back pocket. She'd been feeling pretty shitty when she first came out here, after the Cassandra reminder from the random Yale dude. But then talking to Harry about it, in that roundabout way...she feels calmer. And then mentioning the road trip—it's like she's weirdly nostalgic for something that hasn't even happened yet, and the urge to take a photo or something to commemorate this night strikes her. That's what normal people do, right? Take photos during fun things, like parties? Maybe she'll document it, keep on taking photos throughout the trip to document, or...whatever. She doesn't know where she's going with this. There's nothing special happening right now that she feels the need to immortalize in a photo.

Still, she takes her phone out, tries to get a picture of the stars, but it comes out all dark and grainy, none of them visible through her phone's weak lens. Harry looks like he wants to laugh at her, but he doesn’t.

"Here," he says, taking her phone from her hands, turns it so it's facing her. She looks at him blankly, and he snaps a photo. Then he tosses the phone back to her, which is kind of a dick move, even though there's not enough distance between them to actually threaten cracking the screen or anything. Allie catches it anyway and makes a face at him, and he smirks. Then he gets up to leave, and says to her before he goes, "Let me know if you wanna hang when you get back from your trip."

Allie's not stupid. She knows what he means—there isn't a ton of time between when she gets back to Connecticut and then has to leave for school herself. Harry's definitely not interested in purely "hanging out."

It doesn't matter. It's just another thing for her to ignore, like she does with everything now.

She unlocks her phone, pulls up the photo he took of her. It's not great; the lighting is all weird because it's dark out, but the back porch lights are on off to the side, there are people in the background, her hair is all poofy from the humidity. Her outfit does look good, but her face...she looks kind of angry, as she's looking past the camera at him. Even though she wasn't consciously feeling mad, her mouth is turned down at the corners and her eyes are all sullen and upset. Allie stares at it, wondering if that's how she looks all the time. No wonder people don't know how to talk to her anymore.

She deletes it. 

  


**

  
The night of the party over winter break was the first time Allie ever went to one of those types of things without Cassandra. Coupled with the fact that it was Harry's party and that she was mad at her sister—Allie decided the best course of action was to get plastered.

The party itself was wild, there were people there that Allie had never seen before in her life, people who looked like they were older than maybe a high school party might allow for. She caught a glimpse of a couple of them discreetly exchanging tiny plastic baggies of what she at first thought was just weed, but then quickly realized was not. And she didn't see Harry at all, just tried to stick with the West Ham High crowd she knew, like Becca and Helena and Luke and the rest. But there were a lot of people there, and it was harder to keep track the drunker she got, and then she wandered out to the pool, unsteady on her feet holding a cup of drink that she mixed for herself, because she didn't trust anyone else there to do it.

She was deeper in her cups than she realized, because she lost her footing, almost tipped sideways onto the surface tarp over the pool before a hand was grabbing at her elbow, pulling her upright. It was Harry, and his hand was hot against her skin because it was the middle of winter and she was wearing a tank top outdoors and hadn't realized that she was freezing; she'd taken her sweater off sometime earlier in the night because inside was hot with the press of people all around.

And then he gave her the coat he was wearing, because apparently he was sitting outside all alone in the cold despite this being _his_ party and they passed the bottle of whiskey he was holding back and forth, talked about nothing the way people do when drunk and the most inane of topics can seem like the most exciting thing in the world. Although maybe that had less to do with the drinks and more to do with Harry.

There was a period of time, when she was a junior and he was a senior, where he would regularly flirt with her. He and Kelly were going through a "rough patch" or something and he'd come by her locker sometimes, tease her about her hair or her outfit in a way that was never mean, always indicative that he actually liked both those things. She kind of thought something might come of it, even had a small kernel of hope for it somewhere within her, but then Cassandra caught wind of it when she spotted them one day and gave her a verbal dressing down, and Harry and Kelly "fixed" whatever they were going through and that was the end of that.

Walking outside with him by the pool felt like that, and he teased her about her hair and her outfit once again, told her he was glad she was there, that it was good to see her. She liked hearing that for some reason, even though they were never actual friends; they didn't talk or keep in touch after he left for Dartmouth. But Allie wasn't thinking about any of that, everything hazy from the alcohol. There was something bright about him, moving quickly and highly engaged, especially with the way he was looking at her. Allie asked if he wanted to go inside, upstairs, and he said something like fuck yeah he'd love that.

In his room, they made out for a little and Allie started to get seriously warm at the idea of getting to have sex with Harry Bingham and he got her shirt all the way off, was about to do her bra next but couldn't quite get the clasp right away, which seemed to greatly upset him, and then...it was like an 'off' switch had been flicked for him, because he got all jittery and weird, pushed her away by the shoulder and put his head in his hands. It took Allie some time to realize he was crying, like properly crying, with tears and all, while she was sitting there in his bed with no shirt on.

The change was abrupt and wholly confusing, but he looked genuinely so lost and upset and she didn't know what was going on with him—it was obviously bigger than not being able to figure out her bra—but she was still drunk and not really herself either. So she sidled up next to him, kind of put her arms around him and held him and said it would be okay, to which he responded, "The fuck do you know?", though he didn't push her away.

And then Allie started to get weirded out, wondering if she'd only wanted to come up here with him as a 'fuck you' to Cassandra, which felt like it both was and wasn't the case, despite the fact that she hadn't really thought about her sister since Harry grabbed her elbow back by the pool.

That coupled with the fact that he was obviously in the middle of some kind of emotional breakdown with her in the room was enough to finally scare her off. Harry didn't say anything to her as she left, his head still cradled in his hands when she closed his bedroom door softly behind her.

So yeah. If he still has it in him to flirt with her and suggest they "hang" after _that_...maybe he really doesn't remember. 

  


**

  
Becca texts her in the morning to remind her to get to her house around ten or so—she singles Allie out instead of sending it in their group chat, and at this point Allie's beyond annoyed that they all think she's going to bail. She _said_ she was coming, and she's literally all packed for it. She’s not going to address it, but like. Come on.

Her parents look like they're trying hard not to be overly emotional when they bid her goodbye on the driveway. Her mom hugs her for a really, really long time, tells her to call as often as she can and to let them know right away if she ever feels like coming home, because they'll fly her back no matter where she is, no questions asked. Allie knows they're trying not to be cloying—because the last time they saw one of their daughters off, the worst thing imaginable had happened—and that this is, in fact, a toned down version of their worry. They’ve probably talked about it between themselves already.

More than anything, it makes Allie immediately close herself off, pulling a familiar sheet up over her emotions so she won't have to experience them fully. It's easier this way. She doesn't want to go meet her friends and be a whole mess right off the bat because her parents don't know how to act. She figures she's kind of a whole mess all on her own, without any extra help from them.

Sam spent the night at Becca's, so he's already there when Allie pulls up. They need to pick Will up, but he let them know earlier that Roger being difficult and that he would give them the all clear when it was good to swing by.

"We should just go there now and then kill Roger while we're at it," Becca says as she tosses their bags into the back of her car. "Then we can all go on the lam together, run from the law across the country."

"Hopefully this is the last time Will has to deal with his shit," Sam signs. "I mean, he should be able to get his own place soon, right?"

"I really hope so," says Allie. Will's been without a real home for as long as she's known him, and she thinks he deserves a place to really call his own more than anything. She and Cassandra always insisted that their home was open to him, but she knows it's hard for him to accept anything that could be interpreted as charity. And it's more difficult now, when her house has barely felt like a home to even her these past few months.

Sam's hefting his share of stuff into the trunk of Becca's car, an old minivan that used to belong to Becca's aunt, who gave it to Becca instead of selling it on Craigslist or taking it to a used car dealer. It's a total soccer mom car, complete with faded silver-gray paint and a tiny, shitty TV screen that pops down from the ceiling. Becca's immune to being made fun of about it, embraces it instead; she calls it "Martha" because she says it embodies the soccer mom spirit.

"You know, I barely saw you last night. You didn't just come say hi to us and then leave, did you?" Becca asks as she closes the trunk down, everything securely inside. Allie thinks she spots a folded-up tent and a bunch of camping gear among all the stuff in there.

"No," Allie says, "I stayed for a little, I was mostly sitting outside."

"Talk to anyone?"

She frowns, thinking about the kid from Yale. And then Harry. She left a little while after he took that picture of her, after she realized her car was no longer boxed in. "I guess."

Becca looks like she wants to pursue that topic a little further, but then around the corner of Becca's street comes a sleek, black Maserati that they all recognize, though it's been a minute since they've seen it in action. It purrs along and then rolls right up by the curb, the engine cutting off as the driver's side door opens and Harry gets out.

"Hey," he greets them, like he's supposed to be there and hasn't just randomly shown up. "You guys still have an extra seat in that shitty car?"

Both Becca and Sam turn to look at Allie. She shoots them a back a look that's just as confused. Also, why are they both automatically looking towards _her?_

"Uh," Sam says. Neither he nor Becca have any particular beef with Harry and Becca's well-liked enough to have been invited to most of his parties over the years, but like...they're not really _friends_. "No offense, Harry, but...what are you doing here?"

"Allie invited me," he says by way of explanation. "Last night. I figured the offer might still stand."

"Allie?" Becca asks, looking towards her again for confirmation.

"You said you weren't gonna come," Allie says.

Harry shrugs, though the movement doesn't quite come across as naturally as he thought it might. "I changed my mind."

He _does_ have some serious ego, Allie thinks, to just invite himself along like this. But it almost seems forced, how casual he's making all this; his jaw is tense beneath his easy look, and there's something about the way he's holding himself that makes her wonder what happened between now and last night—when he'd been pretty dismissive about her random invitation—and now. Because there's obviously something.

Meanwhile, Becca and Sam are looking at her like—okay, even _she_ thought she was stepping out of line when she asked him last night. They don't look mad, they're too nice for that, but there's something sharp in Becca's eye.

"I mean...," Allie says uneasily, looking between Harry and her friends. She doesn't want to make this awkward, because she _did_ ask him along, even if she was only half-serious about it. He seems to sense the tension, because some of that forced casual quality wears off, and suddenly, he looks tired and maybe a little frayed around the edges.

"Look," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I get that this is random. Trust me, I know. But I just—" he takes a deep breath, the explanation stopped up in his throat somewhere, "—I just can't be here right now. At my house. In this town. And then I remembered your trip and thought I might try to...I don't know." He deflates a little. "I just need an out."

Allie kind of feels bad for him, whatever he's going through. She bites her lip, looks at Becca and Sam, because this is really more their trip than it is hers. Becca's not looking at Harry, though. She's looking at Allie, shrewdly, pointedly.

She was at Harry's party last winter, too. And Allie has a feeling she saw her and Harry talking alone together, and then going up to his room. She hadn’t told anybody about what actually happened, figured it would be kind of shitty to spread it around. And also she hadn’t wanted Cassandra knowing about it. Becca obviously thinks something more went on between the two of them, maybe even happened again last night.

It's also Becca who says, "Yeah, sure, you can come."

"He can?" Sam signs, and Becca shoots him a look. Allie wants to ask the same thing, and it almost looks like Harry does, too.

"If there's one thing everyone on this trip can agree on, it's that we all wanna get the fuck outta this town," Becca says, popping Martha's trunk back open. She makes a sweeping gesture with her arm, indicating that Harry should put his stuff in. He lets out a breath like he’s relieved, and starts gathering his things from his own car.

"Jesus," he says, fitting his bags in at the very top of their stack of duffels and backpacks. He doesn't have much with him; Allie thinks he must have packed hastily. "Is this thing gonna make it all three thousand miles?"

"Rule one if you don't wanna be kicked off the trip," Sam says, patting Harry on the shoulder (Allie appreciates the way he’s able to be immediately friendly to just about anyone), "don't say a word against Martha."

"...Martha?"

"She's baby," Becca says primly. "And Sam's right."

Harry looks to Allie as if for explanation; she just shrugs. "You asked to come."

Will's not going to be happy about this, Allie thinks as they start loading into the car. Sam takes shotgun and Harry, intuitively, shuffles into the third row so he won't have to sit next to anyone. Never underestimate the utility a soccer mom car provides—they definitely wouldn't have said yes to him coming if three people had to squish together in one row the entire time.

Before Allie gets in, Becca grabs her by the elbow and pulls her back near the trunk and says, in a whisper so the other two won't hear them, "So is Harry the one you were 'talking to' last night?" She uses air quotes with one hand when she says "talking to," like it's code for something else. Which it is, but it's also the truth, in the literal sense.

"Yes," Allie says, because yeah, they did talk.

"What happened?" Becca looks riveted, her hand still on Allie's elbow.

"You want the truth?"

"Obviously."

"Okay," Allie says. She wants to nip this in the bud. "I _was_ talking to a guy, but then it turned out that he's Cassandra's age and also goes to Yale, and then I kinda had to get out of there quick, so I went and sat by myself outside." Becca's smile drops, as does her hand. "And then Harry saw me sitting alone and came up to me and we started talking about, like. Grief. And he mentioned something about needing to get out of the house, and he seemed super upset, so I kinda mentioned the trip to him. But I wasn't that serious, and he said no. I didn't think this would happen."

"Oh," Becca says, sober now. "I...okay."

See, this is what Allie hates. How people all of a sudden just forget how to talk whenever she mentions anything like this—about Cassandra, about her grieving, whatever else that's near the topic. Things get serious and the mood gets ruined. For her, too, because she's the one who actually has to experience it.

Becca looks like she's about to apologize or something, maybe for assuming, but Allie doesn't want to bother with any of that. "Let's just get going," she says, moving around the car so she can slide in and take her seat in the back behind Sam.

They still have to get Will, who texted them with the all clear while they were loading Harry's things, so it doesn't feel quite like a departure when Becca backs Martha, laden with all of their belongings, out of the driveway. But it still feels like something, watching the houses disappear as they turn off the residential roads and onto the main thoroughfare that will take them to the outskirts of town. Allie looks blankly out the window as Becca and Sam pretend to bicker over what playlist to put on—one of Sam's running jokes—and tries not to think about what the hell she's going to do when this is all over.

Behind her, Harry's also looking out the window. They catch each other's eyes through their reflections in the glass, and Allie wonders what they've gotten themselves into, bringing him along.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn't know what she's doing with Harry, just knows that it feels good to do it. And after everything she's been through...is that the worst thing? 
> 
> She doesn't think so.

As Allie had predicted, Will is not happy when they swing by to pick him up.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” he demands when he slides the door of the van open and sees Harry lounging in the back row.

“Allie invited me,” Harry says, sounding just this side of smug about it. Will cuts his eyes over to Allie, looking confused.

“ _I_ said he could come,” Becca clarifies from the driver’s seat, head craned around to look at the group of them in the back. “High school’s over, buddy, time to let this stupid male posturing go. So get in, or don’t.”

Will grumbles, but he climbs in anyway, taking the seat next to Allie. In true minivan fashion, it’s not a single row, but rather two separate seats that have their own armrests, with an aisle between to get to the back. “If he’s gonna be an asshole, though, just promise me we’ll leave him on the side of the road.”

Allie doesn’t say anything right away; she’s always thought whatever weird feud Will had with Harry was pretty stupid. It’s obvious that they both liked Kelly at the same time and had it out for each other because of that, but Kelly ended up with Harry anyway, and then Will and Allie got together, even though that was short-lived and ill-advised. And yeah, sometimes Harry was kind of an asshole to Will, but it wasn’t like he was Will’s high school bully or anything. They were just rude to each other sometimes. And it’s been over a year since all that, anyway—they’re eighteen, Harry’s nineteen, and it seems pointless to be caught up on it.

“He’ll be fine,” she says, glancing back at Harry. “Right?”

“Course,” Harry says, though it sounds like a platitude.

“Fine, whatever,” Will sighs. 

That seems to do for now, because Becca starts the car up again and they head off for real this time. When they cross out of town borders, past the “Leaving West Ham, Come Again Soon” sign, Becca rolls down the windows and lets out a victorious woop.

“Fuck you, West Sham,” she yells, speeding along and letting the wind whip her hair around her face. Will joins her, giving the finger to the sign as it recedes into the distance. Sam’s laughing, and so is Allie, and she doesn’t turn fully around to check how Harry’s taking all this, but she thinks she catches him smiling out of the corner of her eye.

Today’s the longest they’re going to spend driving—almost nine hours, so they can get to Ohio tonight. Becca tells them it’s so they can fast forward through all the boring shit in western Pennsylvania, which basically might as well be the deep South and is full of nothing but natural gas fields and fracking rigs.

“We definitely could have made a stop in Pittsburgh, but whatever,” Sam signs. Becca pretends not to see him, her eyes on the road as they cross into New York. Allie has a feeling this isn’t the first discussion they’ve had about it. She still barely knows the route, and sure, she could scroll up into the group chat and check, but she doesn’t. What’s the point, now that she’s already in the car?

They have to cross through White Plains and over the Hudson and then through northern New Jersey first to get even a little bit inland. Even though they’re nowhere near the city, Allie closes her eyes when she sees the sign welcoming them to New York, pretending to be asleep to avoid any probing questions. Becca has a summery playlist on in the background, she and Sam occasionally conversing among themselves, though not the rapidfire that the two of them usually keep up since it’s harder for her to sign as she drives. Will’s listlessly scrolling through his phone, and Harry’s also got his eyes closed and his head against the window, though Allie’s not sure if he’s asleep or is just pretending like she is.

She keeps an eye on their progress every so often through Google Maps on her phone, watching their dot move further and further away from West Ham, Connecticut. Progress seems slow as hell when she zooms out—there’s simply so much _land_ between here and California, it’s almost unimaginable—but when she zooms in, the little location dot is moving surely along on I-80, along with all the cars on the highway all around them. 

“Jesus,” Becca says when they’re somewhere near the Delaware Water Gap, “is this what it’s gonna be like the entire time? Because I will turn this car around.”

“Sorry,” Will says, putting his phone down. Allie picks her head up off the window, too, and behind her, she catches Harry doing the same.

“This is supposed to be, like, the trip of the summer you guys,” Becca says enthusiastically. “Can we please be a little excited?”

Allie tries to smile—Harry being here has thrown things off for Will, she knows, but she doesn’t think she’s acting all that different from how she would even if he weren’t here. Whatever image Becca’s had of a carefree, wild road trip, where they have the windows down and are all singing at the top of their lungs or whatever—that’s just not something Allie can picture herself doing anymore.

“Cherish your last summer before college you guys,” Harry says from the back, scooting over so he’s in the middle of the row. “Because after this it all goes to shit.”

“Fun,” Will comments dryly.

“Oh, that’s right LeClair, you’re probably not going to college, are you?”

“Harry,” Allie says in warning, because that’s seriously shitty of him to say.

“From what I heard, neither are you,” Will bites back just as easily, and Harry’s mouth snaps shut. He doesn’t say anything else.

“Um. Anyways, blowing past that,” Becca says, trying to rescue the mood, “favorite moments of the year, go.”

“Definitely the soda exploding all over Mrs. Dodge at prom,” Sam answers immediately.

“That shit was _hilarious_ ,” Will says, brightening up.

Allie frowns—she didn’t go to prom. She and Will were originally supposed to go together, as friends, but then...he didn’t bring it up again, and neither did she. Nor did her parents; she spent that night alone, thinking about what would become of Cassandra’s pretty, 20s-style art deco dress with the glittery beading all over it. It’d been one of the few things Cassandra both didn’t want to get rid of or bring to school with her.

“She _what?”_ Harry asks, leaning forward in his seat so he appears in the aisle between Allie and Will. “God, I would have paid good money to see that shit. That woman tortured me all through Calc BC.”

“Lucky you,” Becca says, grabbing her phone from its dock on the dashboard. She hands it to Sam, who unlocks it and scrolls for a bit to locate the video.

“Pay up,” he says as he hands the phone back to Allie, who holds it up for her and Harry to watch on the screen as old Mrs. Dodge ventures by the snack table at the back of the prom venue to open up a new liter of soda, only for it to come bursting out, fizz splattering all down the front of her ugly beige dress.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Harry says, putting his hand on Allie’s wrist so he can hold the phone more closely to him and rewind the video. “Why couldn’t this have happened at my prom?”

Allie never had Mrs. Dodge as a teacher, but she’s heard horror stories about the woman from Cassandra last year and Sam this year. They both had Calculus with her, and even Cassandra, who usually edged just on the side of teacher’s pet, had been unable to get her to not be downright nasty. “I can’t tell if her dress looks better or worse after,” she says, enjoying the moment.

“Highlight of the year, honestly,” Will says, leaning over so he can watch too. 

“Sorry I missed it,” Allie says, tucking her hair behind her ear. It really is a funny video.

Harry looks up at her briefly. “You didn’t go to prom?” There’s no judgement in his voice when he asks, which she appreciates.

Allie shrugs. “Wasn’t feeling it.”

He nods, accepting her answer easily, and then turns back to the video.

“I have a bunch more from that night,” Becca calls from the front as she switches to the left hand lane to join with the other cars who aren’t going to exit anytime soon. “Feel free to scroll through. There isn’t anything weird in my camera roll, I know how to take care of my shit.”

Allie swipes through a couple; there are more videos of people smiling into the camera as Becca talks to them from behind, asking who they’re wearing and who they’re there with, as if it’s the Oscars. Selfies of Becca and Sam and other random people out on the dance floor, many of them blurry, many of them probably drunken. Allie recognizes Erika and Gwen, both wearing pretty, off-the-shoulder dresses, plus a couple other girls from their grade. She swipes into a full body shot of Becca, looking over her shoulder into the camera and serving some serious face, her hair in a sleek high pony and wearing a low-cut, spaghetti-strap black dress.

“Damn, Gelb,” Harry says, whistling. “You look hot.”

“It’s true,” Will agrees.

“I took the photo, it was all me,” Sam signs while Becca preens.

Allie’s starting to feel...well. She’s been completely immune to FOMO all spring and summer—maybe even has been suffering from the exact opposite, whatever that’s called—but looking at these pictures is making her wish she could have been there. She doesn’t wish she had gone, necessarily, but rather she wishes she had a life where going to prom was a no-brainer. Where she wouldn’t feel bad and regretful for having a good time while her sister’s in the ground. 

  


**

  


Somewhere in the middle of western Pennsylvania, they finally stop for a late lunch at a random roadside diner. Becca had wanted to pull in at a McDonald’s drive thru, but Sam put his foot down, saying that they needed a break to eat and go to the bathroom and stretch their legs, because eight full hours in the car is just too much.

Harry slides into the booth next to her when they get seated, with Sam, Becca, and Will on the other side in chairs. Behind the massive, fold-out menu—because diners like this always seem to serve every kind of cuisine under the sun—he gives her a look and presses his knee against hers, though she can’t tell if it’s purposeful or not; the seating is tight.

“Get whatever you guys want,” he says to the group, “my treat.”

Will makes a face. “We don’t need you to take pity on us.”

Harry squares his jaw. “It’s not pity, LeClair, it’s a thank you. For letting me come. Jesus.”

“Not like I had any say in the matter,” Will mutters.

“Too fuckin’ bad, cause I’m here, aren’t I?”

“If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be.”

“Alright, can we stop with this?” Allie snaps suddenly, putting her menu down. They both look at her, startled, likely because she’s been relatively quiet for so far. But she’d rather speak up now than let these two continue on like this for the entire trip. “Whatever issues you guys have, can we just...move past them? Like Becca said, we’re not in high school anymore.”

She presses her knee against Harry’s now, a little aggressively, because she thinks he’s the one who has the most moving on to do, and more to apologize for.

To her surprise, Harry sighs and looks at Will, but not without glancing over briefly at Allie, first. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for what I said about college, earlier. And for being a shit to you in high school. I...had a lot of growing up to do. Still do.”

Will, to his credit, takes it seriously, which Allie kind of loves him for. He doesn’t really hold grudges, and never has. It’s how they’re still friends now, when he originally hadn’t wanted to break up yet and she kind of sprung it on him fast. But he’d come to terms with it eventually. He nods and says, “Okay, man, I’m sorry, too. For what I said. I don’t know what’s been going on with you, and you don’t know what’s been going on with me, so.”

“Right.”

“These boys said lemme just end toxic masculinity’s whole career,” Becca sighs, putting her chin in her hands. “That was so refreshing.” Next to her, Sam’s trying not to laugh.

“I’m not saying you guys need to be new best friends,” Allie says, unraveling her napkin-enclosed cutlery, “but the rest of us don’t deserve to be put through your weird pissing contest this entire trip.”

“Hear, hear,” Sam says, holding his cup of soda up in a mock toast. Becca does a cheers with him, and Allie smiles.

“You know,” Becca says after the waitress comes by and takes their orders. They all get some kind of variation of egg platters, because they know that’s about all one can trust these random roadside diners to make. “That was the most animated I’ve seen you in a while, Allie. It was kinda nice. Maybe Harry and Will should fight more often if that’ll get you to liven up.”

Allies scrunches up her nose. “No one wants to see that.”

“I kinda do,” Sam quips.

“Put ‘em up, LeClair,” Harry says easily. Under the table, his knee presses into hers again. “Let’s give the people what they want.”

Will just rolls his eyes, and Allie’s glad that they seem to be at least capable of getting along.

“I just don’t want this to be a repeat of the Kelly situation,” Becca comments matter-of-factly, with total lack of finesse. Harry snorts, though, his brow quirking.

“Hey man, she’s all yours if you can convince her to break up with her girlfriend,” Harry says, putting both of his hands up in a surrendering gesture. Will laughs, and shakes his head.

“Nah, dude, I got over her before Allie and I got together last year.”

Allie doesn’t know why she glances quickly over at Harry to gauge his reaction to that, but she does. He probably hadn’t known that she and Will ever dated—why would he? It happened a little after he was revelling in being named prom king. Also after she sort of lost track of him for a while, post his father’s death. He’s got his tongue poking against the inside of his cheek, though, regarding Will from across the table. “We broke up before homecoming,” she clarifies, feeling some strange need to do so. “But we’re cool about it. Obviously.”

“Hmm,” Harry hums, just as the waitress arrives with their food. “Might have to have that fight after all, Will.”

Allie’s cheeks heat up, because is he seriously flirting with her in front of everyone? Including Will, her ex-boyfriend? Even if she forgets that fact most of the time, but still. She busies herself with her food so she won’t have to comment, though Becca presses her lips together and shares a look with Sam.

In the parking lot, Harry falls into step with Allie, who’s going to wait by the car while the others get a quick bathroom break in. “She was right, you know.”

She squints at him. “Who?”

“Becca. When she said you all of a sudden got all feisty.” He has his hands in his pockets as they get to Martha, leaning against her black bumper.

“I’m positive she did not call me that.”

“I’m calling you that,” Harry says, with a hint of a smile. He shrugs. “It was hot.”

Here it is. Allie pretty much knows what Harry thinks of her and a small part of her wonders if this is the reason he was so eager to come on the trip. But then again, he did initially say no...but it has to factor in somehow, right?

She settles for rolling her eyes. “Whatever, Bingham.”

Becca comes out of the diner then, her Canon film camera dangling around her neck. From across the parking lot, she snaps a photo of Allie and Harry leaning against Martha, and then insists she take one of all of them once Sam and Will are there, too.

“I’m going to film school,” she says, “you can’t expect me to not make some kind of montage out of this. Just be grateful the camcorder’s still in my bag.”

Allie thinks about that photo Harry had taken of her the other night, sitting in Becca’s backyard. She wonders if she still looks like that right now. Considering she doesn’t feel any different, the answer is probably yes. 

  


**

  


They tell Becca that one of them can drive the remaining distance before they get to their motel for the night, but she insists she’s good for it. Allie knows it’s because she’s a speed demon and thinks she can get them there faster than anyone else, and also because she probably doesn’t trust any of them with Martha just yet.

Will sits shotgun this time so Sam can sit next to Allie; it’s easier this way, instead of him having to turn around in his seat to sign at them. But no one really talks, too sleepy and full from the meal. Something about travelling, especially in cars, always makes her tired, which is weird considering it’s nothing but sitting down for extended periods of time.

They end up making use of the TV that comes down from the ceiling, flipping through the impressive stack of DVDs Sam brought along for just this purpose. Allie argues back and forth with him for a bit over whether to put on a Disney movie or a Harry Potter one, until Harry, from the back, says, “Jesus, we’re obviously watching Lion King, so will you just put that on already?”

Allie looks at Sam with a _so there,_ expression, and that’s that.

She tries hard not to think about Cassandra as they watch, because they were both Simba for Halloween one year when they were little. It’s easier, with Sam’s running commentary as the movie plays. Allie honestly thinks he should go into stand-up or something in college.

“God, I love this song,” he says when Hakuna Matata comes on. Allie, who’s heard all this and more from him before, just rolls her eyes, but Harry apparently thinks it’s the funniest shit ever once it clicks.

She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him laugh like that before, genuinely from thinking something’s funny. It’s nice.

“Don’t encourage him,” she says back to him, while Sam grins smugly at having hooked another. “He won’t quit.”

“I don’t suppose anyone wants to watch Boyhood,” Becca says from the front seat. Allie translates for her, and Sam groans.

“It’s way too early in the trip to bring out Richard Linklater,” he signs while Allie relays.

“Kinda with him on this one,” Will says. “We just left white suburban hell, we don’t need to delve back into it.”

“It was worth a shot,” Becca sighs.

They have enough time after Lion King finishes to also put on the first Harry Potter—Sam insists—but Allie ends up dozing throughout, the motion of the car and the sound of the highway outside the window lulling her into fitful bouts of sleep.

She sleeps through a pit stop at a rest station, and is also asleep when they pull in at a Days Inn outside Cleveland.

"Everyone to bed," Becca says as they shuffle into the lobby. Harry has to book his own room, because they hadn't anticipated his presence, but it's obviously no trouble for him. "Chicago tomorrow, so if we want time in the city then we're gonna have to leave early."

"How early?" Will asks, looking exhausted.

"As early as possible, so get to sleeping. We got past the boring day, after this we're actually gonna see and do shit, okay?"

She distributes key cards to Will and Sam, who are bunking together, and then goes with Allie up to her room. The place is pretty much abandoned; they must be the only guests here, and the only person working the lobby at this hour is a gangly kid who's probably no more than a year or two older than them. The room, though, is clean, which is all one can hope for in a place like this.

"I think Sam and Will are gonna go find food, if you wanna join them," Becca says as she puts her bags down at the foot of the bed closer to the window. "I've driven for, like, nine hours today, though, so I'm kind of beat."

She looks it, settling down heavily on the bed and groaning as she kicks her shoes off and stretches her legs out. Allie's not hungry, she and Sam having passed back and forth various snacks while they watched their movies, but she is feeling a little restless and not at all as tired as Becca seems, since she slept in the car.

"I think I might go out and take a walk around the inn, see what's up. I wonder if they have a pool or something."

"Okay, just be careful," Becca says. "Don't get murdered. Call me if anything's up and I'll come running, okay?"

"Okay," Allie laughs, because she really just means she's going to peek in the lobby and maybe find a vending machine, and also poke around the back for a pool of some kind, if it's still open. She didn't pack a bathing suit, but whatever.

Becca's already lying back in the bed when she leaves the room, with just her phone and key card stuck into the back pockets of her shorts. The inn is one of those types of places that have rooms leading directly out into open-air, wrap-around balconies, and it's humid as hell when Allie steps outside, the late summer heat not seeming to die down even though it's dark, well past ten at this point.

She does find a vending machine when she goes down the stairs and wanders for a bit around the first floor rooms, though it's making a weird buzzing noise and only has a couple buttons that are lit up, so she decides not to chance it. She kind of cares more about stretching her legs than getting the snack, so it's okay. Dimly, she wonders where Harry's gone, because Becca had taken her to their room before he was done checking in.

Allie could just get out her phone and call him—she has his number saved from back when they were flirty in high school, though he never actually texted her, nor she him—but she decides she'd rather explore a bit for herself first. She's not going to say it to anyone, but she’s sort of socially drained from having spent the entire day in the presence of others for so long, even if most of the time she had just been sitting there. She just hasn't done this in months, is used to being alone now.

Around the back of the motel, there indeed is a pool, though it seems to be gated off for the night, with all the lights in the water and surrounding it shut down. There's no lock on the gate, though, so there's nothing stopping her from simply lifting the latch and pushing it open. She kicks her sneakers and socks off and dips her feet in the water, which is wonderfully cool compared to the hot, muggy air.

She leans back, looking at the stars once again, like she had that night at Becca's. They're plentiful out here in the middle of nowhere, Ohio, and it's a clear night, with the moon full and bright in the sky, like a ripe fruit.

"Want me to take a picture again?" She turns her head, sees Harry on the other side of the gate, leaning with his elbows against the metal post. "You break in there, or something?"

"It's not locked," Allie says by way of explanation. Harry looks down, tries for himself, and then he's padding over and settling next to her with his feet in the water, his shoes kicked off somewhere near hers.

"You know," he says, copying her posture and leaning with his palms flat against the gritty poolside stone, "I don't remember you exactly being a chatterbox before, but you're a lot quieter now."

"Gee, thanks," Allie says dryly.

He chuckles. "No, it's not...bad, necessarily." Allie thinks a lot of other people disagree with him, like her parents. Her friends. But he continues, "You're just different, that's all."

"You are, too," she says, because the Harry she'd known in high school doesn't break down and start crying while in bed with a girl, doesn't get kicked out of school for mysterious reasons (if the rumors there are true, at least), doesn't make last-ditch efforts to get out of town with people he barely knows. Doesn’t look bone-tired as a default state when he’s not talking to anyone.

"That tends to happen, with people like us."

She turns her head towards him. "People like us?"

He gives her a meaningful look. "People who have been through some shit. You come out the other side different. That's just the way it is."

Allie hums. She wonders why it's so easy with Harry to talk about this sort of thing. She doesn't feel weird or want to close herself off when he breaches it, because he does it so casually, like it's whatever, like it's just a normal part of life. Which she supposes it is—for people like _them._

"The other night," she ventures, kicking a foot in the water and sending a splash rippling out across the surface, "you know that picture you took of me?"

"Yeah?"

"I looked at it afterwards, and I looked...so unhappy. Like that was just my default look."

"I mean...you _were_ unhappy," Harry says, and only then does Allie realize it's true. "I assume that's why you were sitting by yourself outside, in the middle of one of your best friend's parties."

She'd been trying to do the thing where she covers up her emotions again so she doesn't have to feel them. It apparently doesn't work on Harry, who somehow has the ability to see right through her.

"I deleted it," she confesses. "I didn't like the way I looked."

Harry clicks his tongue. "That's a shame. That was some outfit." Then he flicks his eyes down at her, taking her in. "Though this one's nice, too."

Her outfit right now is not dissimilar to the one she wore at Becca's; they're actually the same pair of shorts in a different color, dark blue instead of black, and a regular graphic tee tucked in to the waist rather than a crop top. "Yeah? You think so?" she asks, feeling a little brave.

He lets out a small laugh, nudging his shoulders against hers slightly. "C'mon. You know what I think."

Does she?

She does. She can't say she hadn't seen this coming, she just thought it maybe wouldn't get like this so early on in the trip. But in swift decision, Allie decides— _fuck it._ Talking with Harry makes her feel _good_ , in a way that she hasn't for a really, really long time. And if she thought this was gonna happen anyway, why not just make it now?

Everything about her past five months has been about blocking herself off, preventing herself from doing anything. Out of fear. Out of anger. Spite, grief, whatever other cocktail of negativity that's been hanging heavy in her mind. Right now, she's just going to do what she wants.

And what she wants is to go for a swim.

"It's hot as fuck," Allie declares, getting to her feet. "I'm getting in."

"What, right now? Isn't the pool closed?"

"I don't give a shit," Allie says, untucking her shirt from the waistband of her shorts. "No one's here, and we're leaving this place tomorrow, anyway. It doesn't matter." Then in one motion, she gets her shirt up over her head, tosses it somewhere off to the side. She shimmies her shorts down her legs too, and Harry's watching, open-mouthed, as she steps out of them in just her mismatched bra and underwear.

She feels her cheeks heat as his eyes drop, completely unsubtle, over her body, but she barrels on, because she's not gonna ruin her underthings when they don't have easy access to laundry on this trip, and it's completely dark in the water, anyway. "Turn around," she tells him, moving her hands behind her back to unlatch her bra.

He obeys immediately, clearing his throat. Allie undresses fully, and then slides her body into the pool. Like she thought, the water is a balm against the clammy night air, lapping at her in a wonderfully refreshing way. She ducks under and swims over to the deeper end so when she stands, the water comes up to her collarbones. "You can look now," she says when she surfaces, pushing her wet hair out of her face.

Harry does, and then he just stares at her for a solid ten seconds. She stares back, stone-faced, as if daring him to say something. Or do something.

He takes his feet out of the water and stands. "Your turn. Turn around."

She does, looking over at the corner of the pool as she hears him take his clothes off and then get into the water, the surface rippling around her body as he moves.

"Damn," he says, somewhere behind her, on the other side of the deep end, "this does feel good."

"Told you," Allie says, and then she ducks back under, swims a lazy lap while fully underwater. It's near total sensory deprivation down there, with her eyes closed, just feeling her way around the water and instinctively circling back around to the same spot. When she breaks the surface and blinks the chlorine out of her eyes, Harry's similarly rising from underwater and pushing his hair off his forehead.

The moonlight washes his skin in some kind of glow, especially now that water is clinging all to its surface, and with his hair slicked back like that...Allie bites her lip. He blinks and shoots a look right back at her, one that tells her plainly he wants her. But he doesn't move from his spot, and distantly, Allie realizes they've gone from about zero to a hundred in no time at all. Casually flirting to being completely naked in front of each other, even if it's not visible through the darkness of the pool water.

This is probably her fault, because Harry, for whatever reason, makes her do spontaneous things, and the onus is kind of on her to make the next move. He probably doesn't want to overstep, she thinks, which is nice of him.

She swims over to him, keeping her head above the surface, and stops when she's right in front of him, their bodies just inches apart in the water. He looks at her, his features dark, the moon somewhere above them, casting a faint light over the curve of his cheek, the cut of his jaw. Allie squares her posture, looks him head on, her eyes wide open.

"You're full of surprises," he says lowly, brushing a lock of wet hair off of her shoulder. He keeps his hand there afterwards, thumb running a single line across the length of her collarbone. She shivers at the contact, her skin cold where it's outside of the water.

"And what of it?" She juts her chin out just slightly, like it's a challenge.

"I like it," he says, bringing his other hand, in the water, up to her waist.

She kisses him first, leaning in across the distance, her hands up against his chest. He doesn't seem surprised, just flexes his fingers against her bare waist underwater, uses the other hand to push into her wet hair. It's hot and slow, much like the air around them, as he moves his lips and she responds, feeling reckless and alive for the first time in maybe forever.

Riding that feeling, she presses against him fully in the water the same time he opens his mouth and slides his tongue against her bottom lip. Skin to skin, everything smelling like chlorine, she lets her breasts press against his chest and he lets out this little groan in the back of his throat.

"You're killing me," he murmurs against her lips, his hands moving up now, across her shoulder blades, around her ribcage, though never venturing elsewhere. He fully could, she's naked with him in a pool and has her whole body up against his, but he doesn't. Allie both loves and hates it. He tilts his head just so, gets one hand under her jaw to maneuver her position a little bit, and she thinks she might go wild.

"Don't pretend like you weren't gonna try to make this happen on the trip," Allie says when she draws back, putting some distance between their bodies again, though his hand doesn't leave her waist, follows her as she inches back.

"I wouldn't dare," Harry says, smirking, and she thinks it should be illegal for him to look the way he does.

She's not sure she really wants to take it much further. At least not tonight, because, like, this is probably a stupid idea in the first place. One that she most definitely hasn’t thought through, because she can't sleep with Harry and keep it a secret from the rest of their gang, and Becca's probably going to be worried if she wakes up at this point and Allie's still not back.

She moves further away from him, and he lets his hands fall from her waist, the sound of the water clear in the night. "Turn around again," she tells him, and he scoffs like she must be joking or something, because he's basically _felt_ her whole body at this point, even if he hasn't seen it. But she raises a brow and then, when he realizes she's not joking, turns back around to face the other corner of the pool while she climbs out using the ladder in the midpoint of the wall.

Her clothes immediately start soaking through when she pulls them on, and there's no way she's attempting to put her socks and sneakers back on, so she straightens and tells Harry it's okay to look again.

"So you're just gonna leave?" Harry asks, staring up at her as she stands on the side of the pool. He can't seem to take his eyes off her, even though she's got clothes on now. "That's that?"

"For now," Allie says cryptically, wringing her hair out against the pavement.

She leaves him in the water after that, two fingers hooked around the heels of her sneakers as she scurries back to her and Becca's room, eager to hop in the shower and finally get to bed.

"Oh good," Becca says sleepily when Allie lets herself back in the room. The bedside lamp is on, and Becca had obviously only woken up because of the noise Allie made with the keycard. "I was wondering when you'd be back. Why are you dripping everywhere?"

"Pool was open," Allie says, instead of explaining how it actually wasn't, how she and Harry ended up skinny dipping and making out in the cool water.

"Whatever, sure." Becca waves a hand dismissively and then immediately passes back out against the sheets.

When she gets into the shower, the reckless, alive feeling is starting to wear off, replaced by a colossal sensation of _what the fuck._ She turns the water as hot as she can stand it, maybe to counter the cold pool, and leans with her head pressed against the tile for a long time.

Maybe she’d moved way too fast, tonight. Like, it’s only day one. She thinks about his hand on her skin underwater, the way he’d looked in the moonlight. It scares her, a little bit, how she’s willing to break the rules and immediately press _go_ when it comes to him. 

She doesn't know what she's doing with Harry, just knows that it feels good to do it. And after everything she's been through...is that the worst thing? 

She doesn't think so. 

  


**

  


Allie insists she ought to drive the next leg, partly because Becca still looks slightly tired in the morning, and partly because she wants the excuse of not having to sit by Harry and deal with...being in his general proximity.

She makes sure to convince Becca of it before they leave the room, so Sam and Will won't butt in with assurances that they can drive instead of her. Becca relents, only because she literally yawns in the middle of her protestations and then looks sheepish with Allie pins her with a _told-you-so_ gaze.

They grab a simple continental breakfast provided by the inn before they go and also stop at a gas station to load up and get drinks and snacks from the attached store. Sam packs a bunch of bottles away into the cooler they keep between the two second row seats, mostly water and a couple of sodas, though Allie spots some beer in there too, likely leftover from Becca's party.

While she's filling up the tank, Harry slides up next to her, leaning all casual-like next to the gas door. "You look cute."

Since they're heading towards a big city, Allie had opted for a pale blue off-the-shoulder sundress that has tiny sunflowers embroidered on it, one of her favorites that she got at a thrift shop with Cassandra last year. She'd worn the hell out of it that summer, when she was with Will—who didn't seem to notice it when she came down to the lobby this morning—and hasn't put it on since. Cassandra had gotten a matching one in pink that she’d never worn, because it just wasn't her style. Allie had absorbed that into her collection, too, when they were Konmari-ing Cassandra's whole wardrobe, though she’s never put it on and didn't pack with her things.

The way Harry’s looking at her makes her think _cute_ is definitely not the only word on his mind. And...okay, she wants to lean over and kiss him, but Becca and Will and Sam are, like, right there. Plus now that they're not alone and it's morning, whatever weird magic had possessed her last night is kind of wearing off. Mostly she just doesn't want to get caught out.

"Thanks," she replies. He moves in, she thinks to maybe touch the hem of her dress or her waist or something, but she clears her throat, looks towards where Becca's around the other side of the car, capturing the essence of this roadside gas station in Ohio with her camcorder, or something like that. Harry takes the hint, ducking his head down and putting an appropriate distance between them so it just looks like they’re talking when Sam and Will slide the van doors back open and get in.

"Everyone piss now and no one drink anything," Allie announces when they're all ready, twirling the keys to Martha around her index finger. "Because we're not stopping."

It's five hours to Chicago, and Becca has imprinted on her the importance of staying on schedule—a prerequisite of being allowed to drive. They want to get to the city while it's still light, and considering it's about nine now, Allie thinks they have a pretty good shot. Will sits shotgun next to her while Harry and Sam take the two second row seats and Becca stretches out in the third, still exhausted from driving yesterday.

While Allie drives, Harry and Becca end up striking a conversation that leads them to realize they have a lot in common—they both love David Fincher movies, they both own film cameras (though Harry says he hasn't touched his since last year), they both, weirdly, took fencing lessons when they were kids. For whatever reason, it makes Allie fidget in her seat. She fiddles with her phone instead, switching the playlist from top 40s to old school 90s hip-hop. Will grins and turns the volume dial up, and then they roll down the windows, letting the beat carry them as they fly along the highway.

"Can someone please take a picture of her?" Becca says form the back. "I need record of, like, the drivers every day. For posterity!" She passes her phone up to Will, who points and shoots one that Allie thinks is probably all hair, from the way the wind is blowing it every which way. When the phone gets back to Becca, Allie hears her say, "Ugh, no. Sorry, but—Will, this is not your thing."

"Let me try," Harry says behind her. Allie doesn't turn around because, hello, she's _driving_ , but Harry scoots up in his seat behind Will's, until he's sort of crouching behind her, and then she hears him snap a series of photos. Her hair's still everywhere, but she casts her eyes over at the camera as best she can for at least one of them, tries to smile and mean it.

" _That's_ more like it," Becca says after the phone gets passed back to her.

"Can you send me some?" Allie asks. "I think I need to update my parents that I'm, like, still alive."

The mood in the car turns after that, because—well, Allie doesn't even make the connection with her words until after the sudden shift. Will clears his throat and is looking at her kind of shocked, and she can't see how Becca and Harry are reacting. Only Sam, who probably didn't have the best angle to be able to read her lips, is none the wiser, and it's a bit of a relief when he asks, "So who's up for Chamber of Secrets?"

That carries them through most of the rest of the drive and Allie, who's trying not to slip back into one of her moods, just focuses on the road as best she can. It's actually kind of soothing—she only needs to pay attention to the dotted lines on the either side of the pavement, the cars around her, following the exact directions that Google Maps is spitting out for her from her phone screen. 

All she needs to do is listen and act, without having to think about anything deeper than the pressure of her foot on the gas or the turn of the wheel under her palms. It’s almost a relief. 

  


**

  


Chicago is bustling and busy and reminds her so much of New York, especially with the waterfront right there along the line of skyscrapers, that it immediately makes Allie withdraw, retreating somewhere inside herself. She's all sore from sitting in one position while driving for so long, her joints popping as they check themselves into the only real hotel they're staying at for the length of the journey, and then go out to explore.

"I don't get it," Will says, while the group of them stand in the middle of Millennium Park, just as the light is starting to fade into early evening.

"It's a bean," Sam says. " _The_ Bean."

"It's called Cloud Gate," Becca provides, "and the guy who made it is a total dick."

"The Vantablack guy? Yeah, he sucks," Sam says.

"I still don't get it," says Will.

They're here on Becca's insistence, because apparently you can't come to Chicago without looking at the bean. She gets out her camera immediately, and then switches it for her camcorder every so often, taking snapshots of all of them musing in front of the giant, silver sculpture.

While Sam and Will debate the merits of the bean and Becca explains its history, as well as the pretentious creator behind it, Allie hangs back, content to observe them. She doesn't really think one way or another about the bean—it's kind of just. There. Big, mirrored, unignorable. Plus, she's heard all about the history before, because Cassandra had filled her in the first time they came here—last fall, so that Cassandra could tour the University of Chicago. They made a little trip of it, Allie's dad and the two of them, got to miss school on a Friday so they could fly in and see the campus and also explore the city a bit.

She hasn't mentioned this to Becca, because she doesn't want to spoil anyone's fun. She's perfectly content to just follow along and do whatever they want to do.

"You don't seem that impressed," Harry says, moving next to her.

Allie shrugs. "Eh. I've been here before."

"You've _bean_ here, you mean?"

Allie groans, because _wow_. "Didn't think you were the type to go for that.”

"Couldn't resist."

"Okay, Harry Bingham tells dad jokes. I'll file that away for future reference. But—yeah, I was here in the fall, actually. Visiting UChicago with Cassandra."

He nods. "Yeah? She was thinking about moving here?"

"Oh, no, she hated it immediately. I think she was destined to be a small town girl, you know? New Haven was perfect for her."

"Can't say the same," Harry muses. "I've always loved a nice, big city."

Allie'd felt the same, once upon a time. Which is why she'd chosen NYU, was secretly charmed with the idea of the lights and the people and the buildings, always something to do or see. Pictured herself having lunch in Washington Square Park between classes, or something. Now she doesn’t know what she thinks. "Why'd you pick Dartmouth, then?" she asks, before she can consider whether or not she's allowed to. But hey, she figures if he can talk about Cassandra, then she can bring this up, right?

He makes a face. "Not my choice. New Hampshire is, like, everything everyone hates about Connecticut, times a thousand. And basically in the middle of fuckin' nowhere."

She wants to ask what happened to him. Why he's not in school anymore—or is he, and everyone is just saying shit? But he clears his throat uncomfortably, and she takes that to signal that the topic is closed for discussion.

"We're taking votes, you guys, first impression of the bean," Sam says to her and Harry as their group re-forms near some topiaries. "Good or bad? So far it's two against one."

Harry looks at the sculpture once again, eyeing it up and down. "Eh. I'll go with bad. It's kind of just a fucking bean. Like, what's the point?"

"Thank you!" Will says, exasperated. Allie scrunches her nose up, amused that the two of them are on the same side in this.

"Sorry guys, can't give a first impression," she confesses. "I've been here before."

"What? When? Why didn't you tell us, we didn't have to come!" Becca asks, like Allie had known she would.

"Uh, I visited the University here with Cassandra in October. We kind of saw the whole Loop, and Hyde Park, Wicker Park...it's a nice city."

Becca's face immediately drops, and she puts a hand on Allie's arm. "Oh my God, Allie," she says sincerely, "I'm so sorry, I—I didn't know, are you okay being here?"

"Yeah," Allie frowns, "I'm fine." Though now that Becca's brought it up— _should_ she be feeling sad? She'd felt perfectly normal earlier, talking about it with Harry. And now she's starting to feel bad that she hadn't immediately felt sad.

"Okay, well—we can go now, alright?" Becca pats her on the elbow sympathetically, and Allie nods, the group of them heading off.

"You good?" Will asks her quietly as they walk back towards the station and like, she's not fucking made of glass, she can handle standing in a spot she and Cassandra once stood almost a year ago now, okay? She still lives in the same fucking house the both of them grew up in, doesn't she?

"Fine," she says, and she sounds tired even to her own ears. Maybe Will takes it as indication that she's too upset to elaborate, or something, because he doesn't pursue it any further. She knows he's just trying to show he cares, but it wears on her so easily.

As their group moves, Harry catches her eye and they share a glance—he has his brow raised and is looking at her curiously, and also looks like he wants to roll his eyes if that wasn't just slightly inappropriate. She presses her lips together, fighting the urge to smile for some reason.

It's nice, having someone who realizes that these reactions are a little bit ridiculous. If he hadn't given her that look, Allie probably would have just let her mood spiral for the whole rest of the evening. 

  


**

  


"Absolutely not," Harry says.

They're standing outside the deep dish pizza place that Sam's picked out for their dinner spot. Going to the bean, eating deep dish pizza—it's about as cliche and touristy as one can possibly get, but Allie thinks that's the vibe they were going for on purpose. Knowing Sam, probably to be ironic, and knowing Becca, probably because she genuinely enjoys kitschy things like this. And knowing Will, probably because he doesn’t care one way or another.

"We're in Chicago," Sam says, "you don't even want to try?"

Harry scoffs. "Fuck no.”

"I mean, I get that we're Tri-State kids," Will says, "but I don't see the harm in trying."

"My Neapolitan grandfather would be rolling in his grave," Harry says.

Becca rolls her eyes. "Well, it's four against one, so if you wanna go off and do your own thing, you're more than welcome. You don't need us to keep you company, do you?"

Harry deflates a little, like he hadn't thought they'd actually kick him out of the group because of his objections to deep dish pizza. Allie feels for him because, one: deep dish pizza sounds awful, and two: it's clear that he's trying, most of the time, to get along with everyone. Even Will.

A truly wicked idea comes to her mind, one that she feels a little guilty for even thinking up. But...if it gets her out of eating this thing? Then so be it. (And if it also means that she and Harry will get to go off on their own for a bit...then, again, so be it.)

"Actually," she pipes up, "I think this was the place Cassandra and I went to when we were here in October." Becca immediately softens and opens her mouth, probably to relent and say they can all go somewhere else, but Allie cuts in. "But you guys should still go! It was really good, I promise. I can keep Harry company while we find someplace else, and we'll see you back at the hotel, okay?"

"Are you sure?" Becca asks, and Allie nods, all sincere. She might be going to hell for this, but yes, she's sure.

"Positive. You guys enjoy, okay? Send us photos."

She doesn't even want to look at Harry's face until they're a safe distance away, around the corner where their friends no longer have a line of sight on them. When she does, he looks like he's been trying very hard to keep a serious expression, all while actually wanting to laugh.

"That was _evil_ , Pressman," he says when they're in the clear. "Pure evil. Is it even true?"

Allie snorts and tosses her hair back. "Fuck no. Cassandra wouldn't touch deep dish pizza with a ten foot pole. And neither would I, frankly."

Harry smiles all smug. "The one thing she and I may have agreed on, then."

"We live forty five minutes away from New York, Harry. It's common sense."

"Glad you have it then," he laughs. And then he looks at her all up and down; she's still in the sundress, with a pair of white slip-ons and one of those mini-backpacks, plus a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head, even though the sun is beginning to set now that it's the evening. And he says, low and with intention, "So where are we gonna go, just the two of us?"

Something stirs in her, but...she's also actually hungry, hasn't eaten a full meal other than snacks since their shitty breakfast in Ohio. "You wanna know where me and Cassandra actually went to eat when we were here?"

He purses his lips. "If it's some shit like a Chicago dog or something..."

Allie laughs. "No, no. It's good, I promise. Trust me."

Harry hums, pretending to debate the thought. Then he gestures out in front of him, a grand, sweeping motion. "Lead the way."

They have to take the L to get there, but Allie has the directions to the spot open on Google Maps, and she's generally pretty good at navigating around. The station is crowded and noisy, the whole of it amplified by the lazy, waning summer evening heat. She can't tell whether it's unconscious, but Harry moves closer to her as he follows along, making it apparent that they're in a group together.

When she's getting their tickets for them at one of the machines and Harry's off looking at the map posted on the opposite wall, there's a guy who looks at her kind of creepy, and she accidentally makes eye contact with him, which she knows is the worst mistake. He looks like he's about to approach and Allie starts getting nervous, but then Harry materializes next to her, leans against the ticket machine and looks down at her and the creepy guy vanishes. She doesn't know if Harry'd noticed him or not.

And then again when they're on the train, there're no seats left, so she and Harry have to stand and hold on to the metal poles and some totally different creepy guy intentionally brushes his shoulder against hers, way too close for no fucking reason. Harry definitely notices this time, because he moves in from where he'd been holding onto a different pole, slides a hand around her waist and pulls her in so her side is pressing against his. She can feel his belt against her hip through the thin material of her accursed sundress, which is likely the culprit for why she's getting so much unwanted attention. (Well, no, _men_ are the culprit, but like, the dress isn't helping.)

"Fuckin' weirdo," Harry mutters under his breath, and gives a pointed glare at Creepy Guy #2.

Allie wants to point out the irony of him coming to her rescue by taking symbolic ownership of her body or whatever, but like, Creepy Guy #2 moves away, and she _did_ make out with him last night, so. Plus his hand is warm against her waist, as is his entire side pressing into hers, which is nice in the chilled, air-conditioned train car.

Harry lets go when Creepy Guy #2 gets off next, but he doesn't move much further away, just shuffling a few inches over so they're not pressed against each other anymore. She can still feel his body heat and smell his cologne, something woodsy and expensive. Allie wants to tell him that he doesn't have to, but she can't find the words, thinking back to that morning at the gas station when he tried to make a move and she stopped him.

"Men are trash," she tells him when they step off at their stop. He nods in solemn agreement, doesn't offer any kind of lame opinion or commentary, which she greatly appreciates.

The place she takes them is a taco joint that Cassanra had unearthed through trawling Eater and Yelp before their trip last time, and probably the thing that Allie had enjoyed the most about the visit. It's just a simple, counter-service place that has limited indoor seating, but lots of outdoor wire tables that she and Harry opt for once they get their orders in.

"Damn, I should have taken a picture," Allie laments after she's taken a first bite out of her taco al pastor. "Rubbed it in their faces, or something. This is obviously better than shitty tomato soup in a bread bowl."

"Gotta hand it to you," Harry says, already halfway through one of his, "you picked good."

"Cassandra actually found this place, last time we came," Allie says, squeezing lime over the rest of her tacos. Harry wipes his mouth off with a napkin, and then regards her for a moment.

"Thanks for taking me, then," he says, all serious. He doesn't sound like he's trying to be sympathetic, or make her sad, or anything like that. It makes her realize she's been just a tad...flippant about Cassandra, especially with the stunt she pulled earlier, and he's bringing some needed gravity back.

She gives him a small smile. "Yeah, of course. Deep dish is a crime against humanity, couldn't let you go through that."

Pull up the sheet again, deflect—this is the first time she's had to do that with Harry. He seems to have noticed, because his mouth turns down at the corners slightly before he shrugs and leans back, seemingly unaffected.

"So," she says, wanting to change the subject. "Is this trip everything you thought it'd be? Not regretting coming along yet?"

He wipes the last of the grease from his fingers, takes a sip of water. "I mean...you guys are a lot tamer than the people I'm usually with. Watching your kid movies and shit, making home videos. It's kind of nice."

Allie smiles, and then she asks something she's been wanting to ask since he appeared that morning on Becca's curb. "Why'd you change your mind?"

He exhales, looks off into the distance beside her head for a second. "I just needed a distraction."

Allie doesn't want to push it, but they apparently have some type of thing about getting randomly vulnerable and deep with each other, because he seems to debate for a moment before sighing and leaning forward with his elbows against the metal table. "I got in a fight with my mom. Just had to get out of there real quick, you know?"

"Was it about school or something?" Allie ventures, thinking maybe he's finally ready to reveal what's happened there.

He shakes his head. "Weirdly, no, even though that's what it's usually about. No, I.” He swallows. “I...found out she was cheating on my dad. While he was still alive, that is. Like, for _years_ , and she's still with the guy now."

Allie sits back, the metal bars on the chair bumping against her bare shoulders. That's certainly not what she'd been expecting. "Wow," she breathes out. "That's so shitty."

Harry laughs dryly. "Yeah, it gets worse. It's on some fucked up, soap opera level shit. Because that's what my whole life is like, apparently."

"You don't have to—"

"It's okay," he interrupts. "It's okay. The guy is...Kelly's dad.” He shakes his head, like he still can’t believe it. “My mom did the merger for his law firm years ago. Like, seven years ago, to be exact."

Allie feels her jaw drop. "And she didn't say anything about you and Kelly being together? For, what, almost a year?"

"What the fuck could she have said?" Harry replies. "And you know the worst part? I did the math, and, like. My sister is six."

She has to consciously stop her jaw from dropping further. "You don't mean—"

"I don't know," Harry says tensely. "I don't _know._ But I brought that up during our fight and that's pretty much when she kicked me out. Threatened to cut me off, too, but all my cards still work so obviously she didn't go through with that."

"God," Allie says, putting a hand up to her forehead. "This makes my dead sister thing look like small potatoes."

Harry shakes his head, the corner of his lips lifted slightly. "Don't say that. We all have our things."

That's a nice way of putting it. She doesn't know what to say, thinks adding something like "thanks for sharing" sounds a bit fake and placating. But then Harry says, "Think we should head back now," stands up from his seat, stretches his hands above his head. His shirt rides up a little to expose some of the skin of his hip. Allie's eyes immediately drop there, and he notices, raising a brow and throwing her a wink. She feels her face heat up and busies herself with getting her backpack on again.

They're actually closer to their hotel now than they were at the pizza place Becca and others had picked out—they’ve sent photos in their group chat, newly formed to include Harry that Harry gives a thumbs down reaction to—so they opt to walk back rather than take the train or call an Uber. She texts Becca that they're on the way back now and receives a thumbs up.

Harry's quiet next to her as they stroll at a leisurely pace, though she doesn't miss the way his eyes are lingering a little longer than necessary on her legs, her bare neckline, her face. Payback for when she checked him out earlier, she guesses. She thinks about how easily he put his hands on her when they were on the train, the pull of his arm to get her to tuck into his side. The smell of him. Her hip pressing against his. She looks down at her phone to distract herself with the map directions, wetting her bottom lip. He notices that, too. How is it that the mood, with Harry, fluctuates so easily between deep and serious topics to _this?_

Her heart's beating a little fast in her chest when they get to the hotel lobby. All their rooms are on the same floor, just a few hallways down from each other, and it seems like the rest of their group isn't back yet. Near the elevators, he looks down his lashes at her, heated, and she already knows he's going to say something along the lines of what he does end up saying.

"I have my own room in this place, you know." This time, with no one else around to see them, he does reach out to play with the hem of her blue sundress, fingers skating just barely over her thighs. "Do you wanna come up?"

So forward. But Allie doesn't hate it—not at all. He's justified in thinking this is where it's gonna go, especially after last night. There's something warm in her stomach, and she wets her lips again. He gives her a dark look.

But then before she can answer, she sees Becca, Will, and Sam rounding the corner to the elevators. She clears her throat and moves away, the skirt of her dress slipping out from between his fingertips before they can see. Smoothly, Harry adjusts his posture so he's no longer leaning in close to her, and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Hey, strangers," Allie calls over to their group. Becca lights up when she sees them, and they all ride up on the elevators together. Harry stands in the opposite corner from her, while Becca loops her arm through Allie's and chatters about how they missed a perfectly good meal.

"Where'd you guys end up going?" Sam asks.

Allie shrugs. "A random taco place we kind of stumbled across. It was pretty good." She feels Harry's eyes on her as she lies and leaves out the detail of her having gone there before with Cassandra. She doesn't want to deal with all of that right now.

"Early again tomorrow, you guys! Be in the lobby by eight, leaving at nine!" Becca calls as they split up to go to their respective rooms, her arm still looped with Allie's.

"Night, guys," Allie says to the group of boys as she and Becca retreat down the hallway. Sam and Will don't respond, already heading off to their room, but Harry says, "Night, Allie," just low enough for her to catch it before Becca gets them to their door.

"How was your date with Harry?" she asks pointedly once they're alone in the room.

Allie scoffs, internally proud of herself for not clamming up right away. She's never been that great of a liar—even though this isn't really a lie, because, "It wasn't a date. We just got food."

"Sure, Jan," Becca says, rolling her eyes. "I saw you two, you know, at his party last winter."

Allie knows this already. She still doesn't want to tell Becca what actually happened, but she figures she can tell some version of it. "That was not at all what you think. He was going through some heavy shit, I just happened to be there. Nothing went down between us." A bit of an understatement, and also a bit of a lie.

"Whatever you say," Becca says in a sing-song voice. Allie doesn't know why she's fighting this so hard—as if she wasn't fully about to go to his room and have sex with him before the rest of the group showed up. Despite what happened over the winter. 

  


**

  


Becca has the superpower of being able to pass out as soon as her head hits the pillow, which Allie greatly envies. Meanwhile, she’s lying in bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about—anything. She texted her parents after they got back to the room with a couple of photos from the trip, as well as the one of the shots Harry had taken of her driving. It's one where she's smiling and trying to push the hair out of her eyes—the other one, where she's looking over her shoulder at him...she doesn't want to send a photo of her looking like _that_ to her parents.

They’d responded immediately and said they were lovely, and then Allie sent one of all five of them at the bean that they'd asked a stranger to take for them, and no one replied for a while. Then her dad, after an obvious pause, said, `'Brings back memories, huh?'` Allie had locked her screen after that and didn't reply. 

In bed now, she holds up her phone again and brings up the picture, realizing too late that Harry's in it and she didn't exactly tell her parents that he was coming along. Not that they really know him anyway, but. Apparently they don’t even care, too caught up in the fucking _memories_ of the single time Allie and Cassandra had stood there, staring at the bean and asking what the point was. So poignant.

She zooms in on Harry in the photo and is about to honest to God lie there and stare for a bit when his name pops up in her notifications—a text.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
hey.`

She almost laughs out loud at how... _presumptuous_ that single word is, but Becca's asleep, even though the lamp between their shared nightstand is still on.

`**Allie Pressman:**  
hey yourself.`

`are you about to ask me “u up?”`

`**Harry Bingham:**  
seems like i already know the answer, don't i?`

`**Allie Pressman:**  
touché.`

`and next you wanna ask what i'm wearing?`

`**Harry Bingham:**  
you said it, not me`

Allie bites her lip. She's wearing a cami and panties, her usual sleeping outfit in the summer. Becca's in practically the same, and they keep the AC blasting so they can snuggle entirely under the heavy hotel comforters, because that's obviously the best way to sleep. But talking to Harry makes her feel...reckless, and he's obviously after _something_ , texting her like this. She's not entirely unwilling to give it to him. It’s after dark, now, which gives her a weird sense of both security and permission.

`**Allie Pressman:**  
and if i said the answer is nothing?`

Harry's three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again. He's trying to find a response. She presses her lips together, pushing herself further into the pillow.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
with becca right there? i don't believe it.`

Feeling daring, Allie glances over to make sure Becca's really asleep—she is, and has her back turned to Allie to boot. Quickly, she pulls down one strap of her camisole and pokes her arm out into the AC blasted air, holding her phone up over herself to take a selfie so that it looks like she's got nothing on under the sheets pulled up to her chest. Without pausing to overthink it or examine her face too much, she sends it to Harry, and then burrows down all the way into the sheets, with the blanket up over her head and her phone held close to her face, everything dark and closed off.

His reply comes quicker than she thought it might.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
nice try. i can see your other tank top strap. still hot as fuck tho`

Allie flushes, and zooms in on the photo—yep, her other strap is right there, visible in the corner. So much for not overthinking it.

`**Allie Pressman:**  
fine, you caught me. i'm wearing a tank top and underwear to sleep, like a normal person`

There isn't anything for a minute, and Allie thinks maybe she should have been sneakier with her photo. But then another message pops up.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
what color?`

Allie doesn't think he's talking about her camisole, which is black. She rubs her legs together, seeking out the cool spots on the sheets.

`**Allie Pressman:**  
baby blue`

She'd picked them out this morning to match with her dress, just for herself. She thinks Harry must know that, because he replies:

`**Harry Bingham:**  
had a theme going, i see`

`**Allie Pressman:**  
i try my best`

`**Harry Bingham:**  
i believe that.`

`**Allie Pressman:**  
enough about me. what about you?`

A pause. And then:

`**Harry Bingham:**  
you don't even wanna know what i'm doing`

`or what i'd be doing if you were here right now`

Allie’s whole body flushes, and she honest to God has to throw the covers off herself and pad into the bathroom after that, her phone clutched in her hand. She can't do this with Becca _right there_.

To Harry's message...she does want to know. But they have an early morning and long days ahead of them, and...God, they only left West Ham, what, two days ago? One? It feels like time doesn’t exist anymore. She types out a quick, `'have fun w/ that. i'm sleeping for real now'` and turns the shower on, feeling the need to cool down before trying to get to sleep.

She purposefully doesn't look at the screen until she's back in bed, wet hair soaking in the pillowcase and quickly turning cold in the chilly room.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
sweet dreams, allie`

She doesn't fall asleep for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> life is a highway.mp3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are now entering farmville

It’s Will’s turn to drive. Allie’s dead tired from having barely slept the night before, so she lays out in the third row while Sam and Harry sit in the second row and Becca takes the front passenger seat.

Harry had given her such a look over breakfast that morning that she almost wanted to hide from how hot it was. It wasn’t hard to imagine what he was thinking about, as he trailed his eyes over her. It’s a miracle that no one had caught him out, everyone too sleepy at the early hour, accustomed to rising late all summer so far. She has to close her eyes when she thinks about it, pressing her forehead into the cool window and pretending to sleep for the first hour or so.

Will blasts Fat Joe as they drive and Becca sings along, letting her hand leisurely ride the airstream out the window— _what’s love got to do with it?_ —and the vibe in the car finally takes on that summer road trip quality that they’ve all been after, as they drive across Illinois straight into the Corn Belt, where it’s nothing but open road, open skies, and rolling plains all around.

They weren’t able to find a gas station in the city before they left, and the tank is running dangerously low before Will takes a random exit off the stretch of highway into a town just inside the state line between Illinois and Iowa.

“Ugh, does anyone even live here?” Becca says when they pull into the seedy little strip that has a gas station and a convenience store where they’ll probably be able to get some food. Sam started making some noise about stopping for a proper lunch, but that idea goes out the window once they take in the state of the place, only greasy spoons and dive bars all around. Other than that, there seems to be nothing but wide, open plains of yellowed grass, flat land stretching on and on into the horizon. 

Allie stays close to Will as he fills up the tank while Sam and Harry end up going into the store. Becca stays inside the car and fiddles with the map, adjusting the route to account for their pit stop.

Allie offers to pay for the gas and, thankfully, Will doesn’t object. But then she eyes the dilapidated state of the station and thinks twice about using her card in a place like this. Luckily she’s brought enough cash with her to cover most things they might need, but cash payments are taken inside the rundown little store. Allie digs her wallet out of her bag on the car floor and heads inside while Will gets in and waits with Becca.

It’s not air conditioned inside; there are electric fans that do nothing more than blow the hot air around, making her hair go flying before she tucks it behind both ears. She’d spotted Harry and Sam around the corner of the building, at the ice machine refilling their cooler, so she’s alone inside, but thankfully the clerk is an elderly man who kind of looks like her grandpa. He smiles at her and calls her “sweetie” in a well-meaning, geriatric way (though she still kind of hates it), and offers her one of those red-and-white swirly peppermints from a chipped glass bowl by the register as she pays for the pump tab. She takes it with a polite smile and slides it into her pocket, not really planning to do anything with it.

Allie steps outside just in time to see a ragged, dirty looking man with a long beard shove Harry back slightly by the chest, by the ice machines. By his side, Sam is frantically trying to pull Harry back by the arm, though Allie can’t quite make out what he’s saying. She rushes over, hearing snippets of the fight as she shoves the gas station receipt into the back pocket of her shorts.

“No, what the _fuck_ did you say?” Harry demands, getting up in the random bearded guy’s face again.

Beardo sneers and spits on the ground next to Harry’s feet. He cuts a glance towards Sam, who looks nervous and pale. “I _said,_ ” and then he says something objectively vile and disgusting, obviously aimed at Sam. It’s Harry, though, who gets furious and shoves Beardo backwards. Beardo, though he has inches on both Harry and Sam, stumbles a couple paces, and then he’s swinging a fist clean into Harry’s jaw.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Allie cries, breaking into a run. From the car, Becca and Will get out too and start coming over to see the commotion. “What the fuck’s happening?”

“Just ignore him, let’s just go,” Sam is signing, pleadingly, but Harry obviously doesn’t understand. Allie grabs Harry by the wrist and tries to pull him away, but then Beardo is shoving at Harry’s shoulders again, making him stumble backwards into Allie. 

“Now you need a fuckin’ woman to help you?” Beardo slurs, and it becomes clear to Allie that he’s fucked up on something and is not at all lucid.

Harry takes a swing and this time he catches Beardo unsteady on his feet, knocks him over with a cuff to the side of the head. As he falls on his ass, a broken-looking needle comes tinkering out of his dirt-stained trousers, rolling along for a few inches on the blacktop. Beardo notices and makes to frantically grab at it, all of his focus now on it instead of them—he’s a junkie, clearly, Allie realizes.

“Oh, fuck,” Harry mumbles, staring down. The fight seems to go out of him; Sam and Allie take the opportunity to drag him away, to where Becca and Will are close now. The elderly convenience store attendant comes out, the bell over the door jingling, to see the commotion, but they’re already pushing Harry back into Martha’s third row. He’s dazed and breathing heavy, and Allie gets into the back with him. Sam had managed to snag the cooler full of ice just as they were hurrying off, and he shoves it between the second row seats.

“Drive,” Becca commands Will form the passenger seat. He doesn’t need to be told twice, and Allie’s thanking their lucky stars that they filled the tank and paid up before they had to make their speedy getaway. Out the window, she can see the elderly man go over to Beardo, who lashes an arm out at him as well, and she feels distantly bad, but at least he’s got to know that they’re not the ones who started any trouble and that Beardo’s obviously completely out of it.

Next to her, she hears Harry cursing under his breath. There’s a bruise starting to form on the side of his jaw, purple and red, so she roots around inside the cooler and finds a plastic bag full of tortilla chips that she dumps out, replaces it with chunks of ice that she gives to him to press against the bruise, her fingers dripping and almost numb from the cold.

But Harry doesn’t take the ice. Instead, he bends down so his forehead is resting against the empty seat in front of him, takes these deep, shuddering breaths, almost as if he can’t get enough air into his lungs.

“Hey,” Allie says, bending over so she can get a better look. “Are you okay?” Tentatively, she reaches out to touch the plastic ice bag to his jaw herself. He recoils at the contact, his head snapping up. He’s got a wild look in his eye, desperate and panicked. She knows what this is—she’s had this before.

Acting swiftly, she fishes the peppermint out of her pocket, remembering what she’s read about focusing on one the five senses to ground oneself back to reality. Taste is a strong one of those, and she unwraps the little hard candy and presses it past his lips herself. He takes it and sucks on it, closing his eyes, the sound of its hard surface clicking against his teeth.

“You good?” she asks him softly. He doesn’t open his eyes back up, but he nods tersely, and then scoots away from her to press himself nearer to the window, leaning the unbruised side of his face up against the cool glass.

As Will hooks them back up with the interstate, he turns the playlist back on, just as low background noise. Allie edges over so she can talk to Sam, who’s turned around in his chair and had watched their entire exchange silently.

“What happened?” she signs.

Sam sighs. “We were just getting ice, and that guy came up to us and said something shitty. And Harry...just blew up. I don’t know where it came from,” he tells her.

“Jesus,” Allie breathes. She knows he’s going through a lot of shit and likely has a ton of anger bottled up...but to let it out like this? It’s scary. And kind of out of nowhere. “You okay?” she asks Sam.

He nods. “Yeah, he obviously was fucked up. And as if I care what some random homophobic guy in Iowa thinks of me.”

“Still, though. It sucks that that had to happen at all. People are the worst.”

“They are,” Sam agrees. “But I was more worried about Harry, honestly.”

She smiles thinly at him. “I mean, I guess his intentions were in the right place. Sorta?”

“That’s true. Glad to know he’s...are we still using the word ‘woke’?”

Allie huffs an amused breath. Then she hesitates, unsure. “It wasn’t a mistake to let him come, right? He can be...unpredictable.” So can she, when it comes to Harry, but she pushes that thought away. 

Sam waves a hand in the air. “Nah, he’s alright. I don’t regret bringing him along. Plus he makes you smile.”

Allie pauses at that, not knowing how to respond—it’s such a… _sweet_ thing to say that it catches her off guard.

“I can see you guys talking about me, you know,” Harry mumbles from his corner. He seems to have calmed down now and is pressing the half-melted bag of ice to his jaw. Allie turns and sticks her tongue out at him.

“Not our fault you don’t know ASL.”

He slides across the seat so his leg is pressing into Allie’s, the both of them at the gap peering into the second row at Sam. “Maybe you guys could teach me? Might as well learn a new skill out here.”

Both Allie and Sam smile at him, and she gets that word in her head again: _sweet._ They spend the rest of the drive, past Cedar Rapids and in towards the vast farmlands around Des Moines teaching him the basics, starting with the alphabet. He picks up on that pretty quick, is able to recite all twenty six letters impressively fast and can decipher spellings, even when Sam does them at speed. They move onto simple words and phrases after that; Sam’s a really good teacher, patient with Harry just like he was with Allie and Cassandra when they were younger, as they all grew up learning.

“You’re gonna be better than Allie soon,” Sam laughs after Harry successfully pulls off a basic “Hi, my name is Harry” sentence.

“Shush, I’m rusty,” Allie says, pushing at Sam’s shoulder. Then she looks up and sees Becca in the front sneakily holding up her camcorder, filming them for who knows how long now. “Hey!”

“C’mon, that shit was _so_ cute,” Becca protests, but she obligingly puts the camera down.

Allie purses her lips. She’s embarrassed, though she doesn’t know exactly why. Maybe it has something to do with the way Harry is still sitting close to her, his discarded bag of melted ice dripping onto her thigh, his shoulder knocking against hers with every jolt of the car.

**

Becca's gone all out for their stop here and rented an entire, gigantic farmhouse stay for them on Airbnb.

It's charming and entirely Midwestern, sitting atop an actual, working farm with included activities for them and all the guests staying in nearby farmhouses, everyone in the radius cashing in on the agritourism trend. Their dinner is provided for them in a barn that they'll drive down to around seven, a farm-to-table banquet provided by the owners where they can meet other guests, maybe even hitch a tractor ride to tour the area. Early morning wakeup calls are available too so guests can experience "actual farm life," rising at dawn to tend to the animals and harvest crops, but Becca tells them they're skipping that, and mentally, Allie breathes a sigh of relief.

There's a cheese platter, all the dairy and ingredients locally sourced, waiting for them when they get inside, along with a hand-written note from the owners telling them that the milk had come from a cow named Gertrude. It’s all utterly enchanting. The house isn't updated and has the stylings and furnishings of something out of the seventies, outdated wood paneling everywhere, but it's spacious and has a ton of rooms. Enough, in fact, for all of them to have their own rooms tonight, Becca informs them. Harry shoots her a furtive glance when he hears this, and Allie already knows what he's thinking.

It's just turning late afternoon, so they have some time before they need to drive down to the barn. Will says he's sick of eating crap for breakfast, and now that they have a working kitchen, they should get some things to cook in the morning. Allie volunteers to go with him to the little market they passed on the way here, leaving Harry with Becca and Sam. He looks a little lost when she and Will head out, and she waves her fingers at him, thinking it'll be good for him to bond without her there, or something. Not that she thinks _she's_ the glue that sticks Harry to the rest of the group. (Okay, she does slightly think that.)

She's a little worried about Becca trying to squirrel information out of Harry about the nature of their relationship, but she thinks Sam's presence will be enough to tamp that down a bit, and she trusts Harry not to be a flashy asshole about it. He's kind of a private person anyway, she's come to realize.

In Martha, a lot lighter and less clunky now that she's not carrying all of their stuff for the moment, Will pulls the sun visor down to block the rays shining directly in their eyes, and turns the radio on. It's playing one of _their_ old songs, from when they were in middle school and decided to ruin everyone's awkward slow dancing by fast dancing to a ballad. It's also the one Will had played when he asked Allie out, last summer.

"Oh my _God_ ," Allie says, turning the volume dial up. "Remember this?"

Will smiles at her and she smiles back—and she sees him in there, flashes of her best friend before they made things awkward; they’d still been on the road to recovery from that before everything with Cassandra had happened. "Yeah, God. What were we thinking? Toni Braxton?"

"Don't hate on Toni," Allie replies, laughing.

Will gives her a look out of the side of his eye then as he drives, and she's almost afraid he's going to say something forward or flirty, which she very much does not want, because it feels like they've only just started to be real friends again. But he doesn't do that; he just says, "You seem a lot lighter. Just these past two or three days, I mean."

"Well. I'm on a cross country trip with my best friends, aren't I?"

Will snorts. "Harry Bingham's one of your best friends?"

"No," she says, scrunching up her nose. "No. I mean—I think we're friends? But c'mon."

"I'm just teasing," he replies, good-naturedly. "He's not so bad, actually. Definitely different from how he was in high school, at least. Gotta give him kudos for standing up for Sam earlier, can't say I wouldn't have done the same if I heard that dude talking shit."

Allie rolls her eyes, because that is _so_ not the correct solution. "You two are both such _dudes_ ," she says, thinking that they might actually really get along if they gave each other the chance.

Will's silent for a moment, and then he says, "Maybe that's your type, or something."

Allie swallows dryly. She does _not_ want to entertain Will insinuating there's something going on between her and Harry. So she does what she's good at now, deflects and pivots to something else. "Do you think it was a mistake?" she asks, squinting over at him in the light. "Us being together last year, I mean. I know I haven't...really been around for you as much as I used to be, after we broke up."

"Nah," Will replies immediately. "I think we needed to get over each other, you know? And you had other shit going on. It's okay."

"I'm trying," Allie says, and for the first time since March, she wants it to be true.

"I know you are, Al." They pull into the dirt lot outside the market. Will puts the car into park, and then turns to face her before they get out. "And just so you know, I _did_ notice you changing the subject, so don't think you're slick or anything."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Allie says primly.

"Sure, whatever. I'm trying to tell you that—if Harry _is_ actually your type or something, I wouldn't be mad about it. Anymore, I mean. For what it's worth."

Allie immediately rolls her eyes, her defenses back up. "You don't have to worry about that," she tells him. She doesn't want to examine why it feels like a lie coming out of her mouth.

She can't tell if he accepts her words at face value, but he shrugs and lets it go, and they head into the market together.

**

By the time she and Will return, Becca’s outside on the massive property, going wild taking film shots of the rustic farm scenery—and, apparently, using Harry as her model.

He’s got a strand of wheat stuck between his lips and a ridiculous straw hat, likely pulled from the walls of the farmhouse somewhere, perched on top of his head. Considering he’s still wearing a button-down and a pair of beige chino shorts, it looks entirely costume-y. Sam is in the background trying not to snicker while recording the whole thing on his iPhone.

As soon as he spots Allie and Will, Harry spits the wheat strand out of his mouth and whisks the hat off his head. Allie laughs so hard she has to wipe tears away.

“She’s real persuasive, you know that?” he says, referring to Becca, who just bats her lashes. “It’s scary.”

“Why do you think we’re all friends with her?” Allie says, between her laughter. “She came up to us one day when we were kids, and it was like, a done deal. You can’t say no to her.”

“It’s true, I’ve been a hostage for like thirteen years now,” Sam says, still filming everything on his phone.

“Without me, you guys wouldn’t be here on this beautiful farm smack dab in the middle of Iowa, so you’re welcome,” Becca says, with a sweeping curtsy.

After Allie bullies Sam into sending her the video of Harry pretending to be a fake hayseed all over the farm, they dig out some cornhole boards in the attached shed. The little bags are full of real, actual corn kernels rather than the plastic beads Allie's grown up using, and she and Harry end up getting a little competitive about their scores. He's not really a sporty person, and neither is she, but he starts making this face every time she lobs her bag closer to the hole than his, and then she starts trying to purposefully sabotage him, knocking his bag out of his hands at the very last second before his toss, or kicking the board to the side so it lands on the grass.

It doesn't matter, because neither of them are a match for Will, who dominates them by several points and wins the small betting pool, just a few spare dollars to make things a little interesting, by a long shot. Becca gleefully records everything, on her phone this time, so Allie's able to send a clip to her parents of her jumping in the air and cheering when her bag lands clean in the hole, Harry scoffing somewhere in the background. They tell her they're glad she's having a good time, and it's such a perfectly pleasant exchange that she's a little shocked they haven't managed to ruin her mood.

They all pile back into Martha when it's a quarter to seven. Allie drives them down to the barn this time, following paper directions provided by the Airbnb that Becca reads off to her, because it's all winding dirt roads here that don't show up properly on Google Maps. The barn is massive and decommissioned, now used for event space by the small community of farm owners and agritourism folks in the area to do nice things like this.

They're the youngest group there by a long shot, not counting the little kids that families have brought along with them, running between the decorative bales of hay and hiding behind the towering barn doors. The inside of the barn is lit with hanging string lights on the exposed beams, and the floor is mostly taken up by the long wooden table spanning its entire length, lined with rickety benches. On the far side of the barn is another table set up with their buffet for the night.

Allie sits on one of the benches first, and Harry—almost a little too quickly—sits next to her before anyone else does. He makes it look casual, like he just so happened to take a seat the very next moment after her, but she sort of thinks it's on purpose. It's okay, she doesn't mind.

"It's like every white mom's Chip and Joanna Gaines fantasy in here," Harry mutters, and Allie actually has to put a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing out loud, because it's _so_ true. But it's also kind of nice.

She's about to drag her own mom a little bit in her reply, but she never gets to, because something cold and wet presses against her left knee and she yelps in shock, swaying into Harry. A golden retriever pokes its head out from between the bench and the table then, blinking up at her curiously, and she puts a hand to her forehead at having had such an extreme reaction. Out of all the things that could have shown up under the table, this is definitely the best possible option.

"Where'd this guy come from?" Harry laughs, ruffling the dog's head. It gives him a lazy, retriever-ish grin as it pants, and Allie can now feel its tail swishing against her legs.

"No clue, I thought there was a wet bug on me or something." He snorts, and she almost wants to pull a Becca and take a picture of him or something.

The dog, as it turns out, is named Bunny, and is supposed to be the farm dog, but ends up sleeping like a cat in the sunny spots around the barn most of the day, or so the barn owner informs them when he catches Bunny sniffing around Allie's shoes on the other side of the bench.

"He's always liked pretty girls," he says, rubbing Bunny's ears. "Just like your fella here, I imagine." He grins at the two of them, obviously thinking that they're a couple on some kind of romantic farm getaway together.

"Guilty as charged," Harry says, hamming it up. Allie almost snorts, but she keeps her cool, not bothered that they're playing pretend for this random farm man.

But it's only then she realizes that Becca, Sam, and Will haven't sat down yet, because they're not there at all. They come trailing in right when Allie swivels her head around to look for them. Becca looks flushed and happy, and she informs them that there's a wine tasting happening around the corner of the barn.

"And they let you?" Allie asks, looking at all of them. Sam, ever the mark of the Irish side of their family, is tinged pink around the ears and cheeks already. Out of all of them, she thinks Harry's probably the only one who could actually pass for twenty-one, and just maybe Will if he played it right.

"Yeah, they didn't even ask," Will says.

She quirks her brow at Harry, silently asking: _you wanna?_

But he's grown quiet and still, is rubbing a finger repeatedly over the grain of the wooden table for what looks like something to do. She’s about to ask what's up, but the look on his face doesn't look like he's up for discussing it: closed off, but still perfectly pleasant—which is, weirdly, reflective of how she's been living for the past couple weeks. Months, really.

And then she remembers the rumors she heard about him, she can't even recall from whom at this point. Probably everyone, including Becca and Sam. His drinking problem. Getting suspended. Rehab.

"I think I'm good on skipping Iowan wine," he says, seemingly unaffected, but Allie hears something in his voice that makes him sound like he's trying to pull that sheet up, the same one that she uses sometimes. She thinks he notices her looking at him a little too perceptively, too, by the way he glances at her and then immediately shifts his gaze away.

She lets the issue drop, follows as Becca pulls them to go line up for the buffet, which is all whole, local produce and roast chicken and potatoes and fresh berries and cream for dessert. Under the table, when they sit back down, she presses her knee against his—like they did in the diner, like they did in the car—to let him know, without saying, that they're still good. They both have their things.

**

After dinner, they talk to some of the other guests; Allie does it half-heartedly, not really down for interaction with strangers. She used to be a chatterbox when she was a kid, but grew more reticent under Cassandra's shadow, until she found her group in high school. And then until Cassandra passed away, because now she can't think of anything she wants to do less than share details about her life with random people. Harry feels much the same way, she thinks, though he's way better at covering it up than she is, immediately putting on some kind of smooth charm as he interacts with the older folks gathered in the barn. A group of old ladies, on an outing here from their senior home, coos over him and calls him a heartbreaker while Allie makes a face behind their backs; he notices and has to press his lips together so he doesn't laugh while they're talking to him.

Becca's having the time of her life, Sam at her side as she goes around and asks to interview strangers on tape. Even Will's managed to strike up a conversation with one of the farm owners; Allie thinks she catches them talking about old cars, or something—Will had been trying to scrap together parts for an old fixer-upper from a nearby junkyard garage, but in the end decided to use that money towards this trip instead.

One of the farmers offers to take a group of them out for a tractor ride around some of the properties, and at this point, Allie doesn't really want to go, but...

"It'll be so cute, so farmcore, come on," Becca says emphatically, gathering all of them around in a circle. Across from her, Harry looks kind of drained, too. They're both low on their social interaction batteries.

"You guys can go," Allie says, stepping back from the circle. "It's such a nice night, I think I'll just walk back, it shouldn't take that long since driving here took like ten minutes. We'll probably end up getting back at the same time, right?"

"Uh, absolutely not," Becca says. "I'm not letting you walk home alone in the middle of fucking nowhere."

She doesn't exactly think there are, like, any serial killers waiting for her among the corn stalks, but night has properly fallen now, settling over the wide, flat land like a weighted blanket, everything navy and hazy.

"I'll go with her," Harry volunteers, like she thought he might. "I've had enough pretending to be a farm boy for one day."

"Fine," Becca sighs. "Such city folk. We won't be too long, so we'll see you back at the house. Right?" She looks between the two of them, as if she wants an actual answer. Allie pointedly does not think about why confirmation is necessary.

"Yeah, okay," Harry says.

The three of them pile into the back of one of the hay bale lined carts attached to the tractor as she and Harry see them off and then head down the dirt drive that leads out to the narrow road connecting this property to theirs. He's spinning his phone in his hands while she sets the navigation on hers, and then pockets it, letting her arms swing by her sides as they stroll up the lane.

"I think," she says, realizing she's bringing this topic up of her own volition, "that Cassandra would have lost her mind over that type of shit we just did."

Harry makes an amused noise. "Yeah? Does that mean it wasn't your thing, then?"

"I didn't say that. It was nice."

"Yeah, it was. I can't imagine actually living like that, though. Just feels like I'd get bored."

"Me too," Allie agrees, because she's always had it in her head that her adult life would be busy and bustling, even if she doesn't know what she wants to be busy with quite yet. Not this idyllic farm life, where the only sounds audible as they pace up the road are the chirping of the crickets and the soft rustle of the wind through the tall corn crops, everything around them smelling like earth and growth. It is nice, though, just as a stopover.

"You mention her a lot," Harry says, a little quietly. Allie glances over at him.

"Not...all the time. Not with everyone. It's kind of not allowed, you know?"

"Yeah," Harry replies, "you never wanna be the mood killer. And you don't exactly want to think about it all the time either, but it pops up anyway. I've been there."

She thinks that's an incredibly astute thing to say, and she wonders how many times he's been there before, like her. Their situations with their respective dead family members are so, so different.

And then he says, "Can I—can I ask what happened?"

"You don't know?"

He gives a tiny shrug. "She and I weren't exactly friends, you know that. I've only heard, like, secondhand stuff. A lot of different shit, some of it straight up insane."

Allie hadn’t known there'd been rumors or theories going around about how her sister had died—insane ones, at that. It makes her a little sick. She’s absolutely sure she doesn’t want to know what they are, and sighs, runs a hand through her hair, now in near ringlets, curling around the edges of her face because of the warmth and humidity.

"It was always a possibility," she begins, her voice quiet. "She was sick. She always was sick—had a heart condition from birth. It was real hot and cold growing up, she had a ton of surgeries. We were never really sure she’d be okay. I used to pray at night—” her brow furrows midway through, because she’s forgotten this detail until this very moment, “—that we could trade places. That way she could be alright.” What a strange, zero-sum game, Allie now realizes. Why had she not just prayed for Cassandra’s health, full stop?

Harry considers this, and then replies, somber, "I had no idea."

"Not a lot of people did. She got better as we got older, and then by the end of high school things were pretty much normal, as long as she took her medicine. But it was always a possibility—we knew that—but...I don't know. We got so used to things being okay that maybe we all kind of...forgot. My parents and I. And then she went back to school after spring break, and then just. _Died._ It was,” she pauses, swallows once, “unexpected."

"Just like that?"

Allie nods, the words stuck in her throat somewhere. "Just like that." 

She's never, ever told this story to another person before. All the people close to her already know some semblance of it, so she's never had to spell it out like this before, even the abridged version she's given Harry. He's quiet beside her, the two of them still keeping pace. Perhaps unconsciously, his footing has adapted to match with hers, their left and right legs stepping out simultaneously as they walk.

"I'm sorry," he says after a while, and this is the first time he's made a motion to offer any sort of condolences in all the times they've mentioned Cassandra. She hadn't felt like she needed them from him before, but it feels nice, now, after giving him a fuller picture of her death rather than bringing up snippets of her life. "What did you do?"

She notices he doesn't ask if she's okay or about her feelings or anything. Those, he probably understands on some level. "Honestly? Nothing. I couldn't get out of bed for like, days. Skipped school. I didn't want to do anything. I mean, fuck people. Fuck food. Fuck everything, right?" He hums in acknowledgement. "But I was starting to scare my parents. I was starting to scare myself, too. So I got up and kind of just...went on. Had to."

"This was in March?"

"Yeah."

Harry exhales a single dry laugh, the sound of twisting with irony.

"What?"

"No, it's..." He shakes his head, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "It's weird to think we were kind of doing the same thing at the same time, for different reasons."

Allie feels a crease form between her brow. "How do you mean?"

He takes a deep breath, as they round one of the bends in the road they took on the way here, scuffs his sneaker against the road, sending pebbles scattering and puffs of dry dirt rising into the air. "I don't know what you've heard about me," he says evenly, "but I'm sure it's something. Right?"

Allie nods. There's no use in pretending otherwise.

"Some of it's probably true. Some of it's probably people saying shit. But I don't know. It was like. The routine of everything before was keeping me together, especially after my dad died. Going to school, play rehearsals, college shit, studying for APs and finals, being around Kelly, all that shit. And then all that was gone after I got to Dartmouth, and...I don't know. I kind of spiraled, for a while there. I was by myself, and I just didn’t know how to… _be._ "

She thinks back to winter break, back to his party. She's absolutely sure there's no way he remembers, now, and she's not going to bring it up; she'll spare him that.

"Partied a ton, drank even more," he continues, and she wonders if he's ever told anyone this story before, either. "It was like I didn't know who I was in that place. Pretty much stopped going to class before the first semester even finished. Got into harder stuff, too. Not just drinking."

"Harry," she says softly, as she tries to recall if anything about him had seemed out of the ordinary, other than him just being drunk, the night of his party. She can't remember; her mind was on other things, then. The look on his face from just this afternoon floats into her mind, though. With the guy at the gas station.

"I got offered a bump of heroin, once, and I almost took it," he says. The open admittance of it shocks her a little—a reveal into exactly how far gone he’d been. "But then it was like—I could see my entire life laid out before me, if I said yes. The direction I was going in. Where I'd end up. It became really, really clear. So I turned it down, but, like. Everything was still all fucked up. I withdrew from the school myself, but I didn't tell my mom. Stayed in Hanover until she found out and dragged me home before spring semester ended. I couldn't get out of bed, either, while I was there. Stayed in for days, just...in the dark, in that apartment I had." He frowns, recalling that time.

Allie doesn't know what to say. Most of all, she feels grateful that Harry's decided to share this with her. She can't imagine he's told anyone else. And also sad, achingly so, that he had been so lost. "Harry, that's...," she begins, but then he nudges her a little with his shoulder, letting her know that she doesn't need to come up with some kind of word to describe his situation. "You seem better now," she says instead.

"Well, I kicked the drinking, so there's that."

She twists her lips up into a small smile. "That's great."

"I told you," he says, knocking into her on purpose again. "People like us, we've been through some shit." It's clear that it's not some kind of suffering competition between them. They both have their things—and now they know what they are. "Just don't go down the same path I did, when you get to school. NYU, right?"

She feels herself tense up at the mention, thins her lips into line and nods quickly, hoping to avoid the subject. They've opened up to each other a ton tonight, but...she doesn't even understand her own feelings on going to school yet. There's no way she's also putting that on the table for him. All she knows is whenever it comes up, she wants to go back to bed and pull the covers up over her head, shut out the world, like she did in those days following Cassandra's death. "Yeah."

"You must be excited."

That's certainly not the word she'd use. But they're coming up on the farmhouse now, and Allie jogs ahead (ignoring her mind telling her she's literally running from the conversation), turns on the porch light when she hops up the wooden steps and then leans out over the wooden railing to look at him jog to try and catch up.

There are fireflies around them now, lighting up in tiny specks among the tall grass and ivy that climbs up the risers. Harry's smiling as he reaches the porch and sidles up next to her, copies her posture and leans out against the wood.

"Think the others will be back anytime soon?" He's carefully not looking at her as he speaks, and Allie gets what he's trying to ask immediately. They're alone and night proper has fallen, and so far on the trip, nighttime is when the two of them...get up to things, and they have their own rooms here to boot. Though she honestly doesn't know what she'd been thinking on that first night, getting like that with him in the pool—it's like something wild strikes her whenever it comes to wanting Harry. Or Harry wanting her.

But tonight, she doesn't feel that same foolhardiness. Their earlier conversation is still weighing on her, and...she doesn't know. It feels like too much, right now, to go from that, to... It's just too much. She feels exposed, like an open nerve. He knows things about her now, and she knows things about him. And she knows she's acting hot and cold towards him when she pulls away, turns so they're facing opposite directions against the wood, but she does it anyway.

"Yeah, should be any second now. We should actually get the fire pit started for them, I think."

And then she leans up and away from the railing, opting to go the side porch steps and round the house to the backyard, rather than through the inside, where he could follow her, get close up to her while there were four walls and furniture boxing them in together. He doesn’t say anything, follows her at a distance.

**

Earlier, Becca had shown them the fire pit in the backyard and said that tonight would be the first of many fireside group hangs. A theme for the trip, supposedly. As they try to figure out how to get it going, because it's not a fancy automatic one like Harry has in his backyard and actually requires wood and kindling, Martha pulls up to the front, tires crunching audibly against the gritty dirt drive. The rest of their group is back.

Harry doesn't have to surreptitiously slide away from her or anything like that this time, because Allie's been—a little purposefully—keeping moving around, flitting here and there to stack firewood by the pit, or gather sticks long enough to be pokers, seeking out dry leaves and things to get it started. He hasn't had a chance to get close, to put his hands on her.

Maybe that's a good thing, because Becca looks a little surprised to see the two of them there, at work on the fire, when the rest of them trail into the yard. "You guys started the fire!" she says, her hand over her heart. "I thought maybe you weren't going to do it."

"Who doesn't love a good campfire?" Allie says as she tries to get the kindling going, but it just won't take.

"Here, let me," Sam says, pushing her hands away.

"How do you know how to start a fire?" she asks him curiously, peering over his shoulder as he lights some newspaper and then deftly coaxes the flames onto the kindling piled in the center, until they catch and start spreading over the dry leaves and twigs.

"I have my ways," Sam replies cryptically. Allie wonders what they are, because she's known Sam her whole life and has never, ever seen him be the outdoorsy type.

They all sit around the fire, then. Will finally breaks out the beers that she spotted in the cooler, but Allie declines. Not only to make it not look weird that Harry also says no, but because it feels a little inappropriate, after everything today. It's been a weird day, heavy shit interspersed with moments of calm. The gas station fight, Harry's small panic attack, then the rest of the drive, the farm, their talk afterwards...yeah, it's a weird day.

Allie tunes out as the rest of them chatter. Becca tells them about looking at some of the sleeping farm animals, the pumpkin patches that are well under way for October harvest, the cute farm chick that slipped Will her number. Allie laughs at that, because she can imagine Will laying on the charm for a wide-eyed countryside girl. Harry laughs too, asks Will to give him tips.

He seems to be more comfortable around all of them now, Harry, which she's glad for, but he also keeps trying to catch her eye over the fire—she's purposely sat in between Sam and Will this time—but she still has that strange, skittish feeling from earlier. Like, today's just not the day. They've gone too far into deep territory, and if they did it now...it would just be too much for her.

When there's a lull in the conversation, Allie yawns (she doesn't have to pretend, because she actually _is_ tired, they've had a long day) and says she's going to call it a night. The way Harry has his eyes on her, she knows he wants to follow. But she thinks she's given him enough signals, and he's good at picking up on subtleties, so he doesn't try to do something obvious like offer to walk with her back inside, or even say good night to her out loud. If he did, she thinks she'd be able to hear it in his voice.

The others do chorus a good night to her, though, and she can tell from Becca's tone that she's dying to know what went on while she and Harry had been alone. The honest answer this time is nothing, so that's what Allie will tell her when she inevitably asks.

She gets to the small room she's picked out as her own and is sliding into bed when her phone buzzes with a text from Harry, who's still out there with the three others, though she can hear Will saying something about calling it a night, too. She’s half afraid it’s going to say something dirty (and if it does, she doesn’t entirely trust herself not to respond in the same fashion), but it doesn’t.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
you okay?`

It's sweet of him to ask, and she'd correctly guessed that he is indeed able to read her subtleties and tell that something's off. At least, compared to how she's acted with him every other time they've been alone. It also makes her flush, looking at his message now compared to their most recent chat history. The last thing he'd sent her was _sweet dreams, allie_ , and before that…

She could easily type out something coy like _yeah, but you wanna come double check?_ which would likely lead them into a repeat of their conversation from last night, plus extra. His room is just down the hall from hers.

She shakes her head types out her response:

`**Allie Pressman:**  
yeah all good, just super tired.`

`night 😴`

It's the truth. She's not lying. She's tired and she wants to sleep and forget, for a little bit, about everything she's revealed today, everything she's learned. But she also holds all of that close to her chest somewhere, both relieved and regretful for having shared and for knowing what she knows about him now. It's confusing; she doesn't know how to feel. She doesn't know why this affects the plain fact that she wants Harry, that he wants her.

She's reading too much into it, she realizes, which is the exact opposite of what she's trying to do. So she closes her eyes, and then draws the covers up over her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah the great plains (gazes into the distance)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How is it that it always ends up being the two of us, wandering around at night?" he says when they round the street corner, having gone a couple blocks by now.
> 
> Allie's quiet for a moment, thinking how far she wants to take this, decides she’s feeling reckless enough to say exactly what's on her mind. "That's a little on purpose too, don't you think?"

They have a proper breakfast that Will rises early to cook for them all, everything farm fresh: eggs, toast, sliced fruit, and bacon that, heartbreakingly, has the pig's name—Hector—written on the packaging. Becca refuses to eat it, which both Harry and Will think is terribly funny.

"Fully believe she's going to go all LA vegan by the time the year's out," Sam signs.

"And so what if I did? I'd expect your support," Becca says haughtily around her coffee mug.

After cleaning up the kitchen, they hit the road before morning's out. Sam’s behind the wheel today, while Becca takes shotgun again, Allie and Harry take the second row, and Will takes the third. Harry had looked slightly disappointed when Sam went to fill the driver's seat.

"Kinda was looking forward to learning some more ASL," he says.

"Hello? I can still teach you," Allie replies.

Sam says, "You're not as good,” and she pretends to be all offended, which makes Harry snort.

"I'll teach you," Becca declares, turning around in the front passenger seat to face them. "I'll teach you what you really wanna know." And then she signs something dirty, which makes Allie shake her head and roll her eyes, but she's also smiling.

Becca runs the gamut of swear words and sexual phrases in ASL with Harry; a lot of them Allie hadn't even known. Becca has an extremely colorful and varied vocabulary, and even Will leans up in between them to observe. Harry seems highly amused, copying along with enthusiasm. Sam glances at them out of the corner of his eye every so often, makes one-handed suggestions when there's a lull in the road. There aren't a ton of cars out here, in the middle of nowhere. They cross the border into Nebraska, bypassing Omaha to head out into the vast expanse where there's nothing but great plains and flat prairies.

Allie's never been to this part of the country before, the gigantic middle part, and she also never really thought she'd find herself here. It's all grass, fields and fields of it, though every so often they drive through a few towns that appear along the side of the road, clearly remnants of a time this area was a more often-travelled thoroughfare. Inside the car, it's all bright and loud, music playing as Will makes noise about putting on a movie instead, something action like Mission Impossible or James Bond. When Allie looks out the window, out into that never ending horizon, with nothing but space and grassy plains all around, it feels so far from the atmosphere they have in here. Big and lonely.

"Guys," Sam says from the front, but no one except Allie, still quietly looking out the window, hears him. Becca and Will are busy arguing over Will's movie suggestions—she wants to put on something more high concept, one of her indies—and Harry's busy looking at her, or something. She can feel his eyes on her, though she doesn't move hers from the landscape blurring by.

"Guys," Sam says a little louder and more urgently, and then Allie turns, because she starts to hear it, past Becca and Sam's chatter and the music playing.

"Do you guys hear that?" she says, taps Becca on the shoulder to get her attention. "Turn the music down."

Becca does, and then they all hear it. A strange buzzing noise, with the occasional metallic grinding, coming from Martha somewhere.

"That's...not good," Harry says slowly, straightening up in his seat.

Sam obviously can't hear it, but something must obviously feel off for him too, because he starts slowing down. Some of the buzzing fades, but the grinding is still there.

"Uh, yeah, you wanna tell him to pull over right the fuck now?" Will says to Becca, who relays to Sam. "That's definitely the transmission."

Allie doesn't know a thing about cars, but she decides that definitely doesn't sound good. Sam pulls over to the shoulder; they're on a stretch of wide open, single-lane highway, with absolutely nothing on either side of the gray, faded road but sunburnt grass and tufts of underbrush. They all get out of the car for good measure while Will goes and pops the hood, though he looks out of his element as he peers underneath to determine the problem.

"We've taken advantage of her," Becca laments, looking distressed. "Martha’s not used to this much strain."

"Isn't she supposed to be the representation of a soccer mom, the epitome of someone who does the most?" Sam asks, but Becca pointedly pretends not to notice him.

Allie's got her thumbnail in between her teeth, trying not to think about what the fuck they're gonna do if they end up stuck out here, while Harry goes over and tries to survey whatever the damage is with Will. She hears them mumbling back and forth while Becca, ever the pragmatic one out of them all, whips out her phone and begins searching for the nearest towing service.

As she suspected might be the case, Will and Harry are unable to fix whatever it is that needs fixing, and they end up having to call the tow service, who tells Becca on the phone that they can take them several miles in to the nearest town that should have a local mechanic that'll be able to take a look.

"This is hell," Allie says, leaning against Martha's bumper while they wait for the tow. It's hot, in the middle of the afternoon out here on the side of the road, with not a spot around for any semblance of shade, the sun baking onto the black pavement. They're meant to head to another farm today, this time specifically a berry farm where they'd be staying at a nearby bed and breakfast. But now—who knows?

"Where the fuck even are we?" Harry says irritably, settling down next in a half-lean next to her, against Martha's adjacent tail light. "I thought there was nothing in Iowa, but this is like a million times worse."

Privately, Allie can't help but agree. There aren't even any telephone poles or electrical wires around.

"How was I supposed to know this was going to happen?" Becca sighs. The towing guy didn't say how long it'd be, but they have no real choice but to wait.

"You didn't get her serviced or anything like that before the trip? Not even just to check everything was in working order?" Will says, closing the hood back down with a thump. Becca shakes her head.

"I didn't know I had to...she's always been perfectly fine. Why is this happening _now?_ "

"When you think about it," Sam offers, "there's no such thing as a good time for a car to break down. So why not now?"

The mood is considerably down after that, even when the tow truck arrives. It's accompanied by another guy driving a pickup truck, because Becca had told them over the phone that there were five of them that needed transport. Will gets into the passenger seat, probably to talk about the problem since he knows a little about cars, and the rest of them pile into the truck bed. Harry settles down directly across from her, their feet bumping as they sit with their knees up. He shoots her a look, a half-smile and a kind of shrug like, _'crazy, right?'_ that she returns with a small smile of her own.

Becca had retrieved her camera from Martha before she got hooked up to the tow, and is now snapping photos of the four of them in the bed of the truck, wind in their hair as they drive along the empty stretch of road.

"Where the fuck are we even going?" Harry asks, raising his voice over the wind.

Allie has their dot open on Google Maps again; they're sort of near a city called North Platte, though that's not exactly where they're going. She zooms in, sees them heading for one of those tiny, roadside towns, now practically ghost towns. They're not actually too far off from their destination for tonight, had already travelled a good portion across the state before this happened. Becca had told them that she wanted to drive them as far out as possible, to save on travel time for tomorrow when they’re meant to head into Colorado, near Denver, to have their camping day.

"With any luck it'll just be a quick fix," Becca says, trying to look on the bright side. Allie doesn't say it out loud, but she has a feeling it won't be, because when things go wrong, they go _wrong_. That's just the way life is. "Harry, did you see anything when you were looking with Will?"

"Honestly?" Harry says, twisting his lips slightly. "I don't really know shit. All my cars are...you know, I'm not the one who keeps maintenance on them."

Allie snorts. "So why'd you go over to look with him, then?"

He pauses for just a second. "Maybe I was trying to impress someone." He sounds like he's teasing though, it's such a stupid thing to say.

"Oh, yeah. Girls love it when you lie to them."

"Well, sometimes the truth is a bit of a mood killer, I think. Nothing wrong with a little pretend."

Allie looks at him with a raised brow, refusing to be cowed into embarrassment or chagrin. He's talking, obviously, about them. Becca and Sam watch the back and forth like cats following a target with big eyes. Thankfully, they refrain from saying anything, and Allie presses her lips together into a line.

“Take it in, ladies and gents,” Becca says after a while, draping her arms against the side of the pickup, her camera hung around her neck. “We’re all headed off to city life. This might be the last time we’re ever going to get to see this much open space. Especially you, Allie, geez, right in the middle of Manhattan.” 

Allie laughs weakly, though it doesn’t sound genuine at all, even to her own ears. She feels Harry cutting her a glance, but she pretends not to notice. Now that Becca’s pointed out the difference, though, there’s something nice about the openness of this place. Scenic. Classic. On a whim, she takes out her phone and opens up Instagram for the first time in…well, a long time. She hasn’t updated her story or made a post or done anything since March.

As she thought, Becca and Sam have added numerous clips to their stories, and she flips through only a couple before swiping out and opening her camera to make her own. Might as well make the return now, while she has something interesting to post about. She holds her thumb down, records the landscape whizzing by, the wind whipping against the camera and blowing her hair into the frame as she slowly pans around, to the rest of the people in the bed of the truck with her. Sam and Becca throw up peace signs, and Harry does this little smirk, right at the end before she releases her thumb and the clip ends.

Allie reviews it, decides that he is unfairly photogenic, and then posts it anyway, without tagging anyone. 

A few of the replies are immediate. Bean sends: `you’re back on ig!!! 🥳`, followed by: `…is that Harry Bingham?!` Grizz reacts with the clapping emojis, and Helena sends a simple ‘👀.’

Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, she turns her notifications off and sleeps her phone. People, apparently, hadn’t known that Harry had joined them, and now she’s given it away. Whatever. He hasn’t been on Instagram in months either, since around when he left for school—she knows because she’d noticed, peripherally, in the fall when she was obsessively keeping up with all her friends who’d left.

“I think it’s hitting me how weird this all is,” Sam signs, next to her. “We’re nowhere near home and nowhere near our destination. Sitting in this random dude’s truck.”

“Think of the story it’ll make, though,” Becca says, who now appears to be back on the side of optimism. “What’s a road trip without a little drama?”

**

The town they pull into indeed is one of those small ones cropped up on either side of a single road branching directly off of the only highway exit for miles around, like some sort of almost-ghost town. The mechanic the tow service takes them to is some man called Lou who operates out of a rusty-looking repair garage attached to the only gas station along the strip. He seems like he knows what he's doing, but is rather cantankerous when the tow shows up with Martha, grumbles as all five of them climb out of the pickup. Becca and Will take the lead in telling him about the situation. Allie doesn't stick around to listen, instead opting to walk across the street with Sam to the small general store to get some drinks and snacks for all of them.

When they get back, she hears something about pricing being thrown around—apparently the problem is more complicated than anticipated, and requires getting in a new part that they don't have in stock and likely won't until the morning when Lou can drive to the next town over and retrieve it from a bigger repair garage that, for whatever reason, is closed today. Allie knows Becca's certainly not hurting for money, but she doesn't have an unlimited budget to work with. Her parents had given her a set amount meant to last the trip, no more, no less. Harry steps in then, takes Becca aside by the elbow and says something quietly to her. Allie's certain he's offering to pay, and Becca looks like she wants to argue, but then Harry's already turning to Lou to inform him.

Allie stays on the sidewalk with Sam and Will, who'd wandered over while Becca and Lou had been discussing price, trying not to eavesdrop.

All told, including the time it'd taken for them to unpack Martha of most of their bags and for Lou to poke around her driver's side to see the transmission issue, it's still a fair amount of time for a simple diagnostic. It's almost evening by the time they're given assurance that Martha will be all fixed up in the morning, once they get the missing part.

Which means they're stuck here overnight. It's not a big place, but the pickup guy offers to drive them over to the nearest (and only) motel in town so they'll have a place to stay. It would be about a twenty minute walk, but they all have their bags with them, so they pile back into the truck bed and head out. The motel is grimy and cheap, but it's not like they have any other options, and they're all too polite to say anything about it in front of the pickup driver, whose name they find out is Richard, along with the fact that he's lived here in this small Nebraska town his whole life. He bids them farewell and good luck and then drives off while Becca, ever the leader of their little troop, books them all rooms.

Harry looks extremely disdainful at the state of things, the carpeting faded and torn in some places, water damage staining the ceilings and walls of the tiny lobby, paint chipping, everything smelling faintly of too much lemon disinfectant (which, all things considered, is not the worst thing at all).

"Can you at least pretend to not look like you'd rather be anywhere else?" Allie mutters under her breath to him, and he schools his expression a bit.

"Don't tell me you guys are looking forward to this," he says. Beside him, Will shrugs.

"Eh. I've stayed in worse."

"Sorry, Harry, this isn't the Four Seasons," Sam jokes, and Harry grumbles under his breath—because he _has_ stayed at the Four Seasons before, he told Allie so in high school after coming back from a trip to Hawaii. He was all tanned and sunkissed then, and Allie honestly couldn't keep her eyes off him.

Neither of them are tan now, despite the time of year, because she knows the two of them have basically spent their entire summer indoors and alone. Until now.

Becca distributes their keys—actual keys, not cards, because this type of place isn't up-to-date enough to have electronic locks—in the same fashion she had that first night in Ohio. Becca and Allie to one room, Sam and Will to another, and Harry to his own.

"I got your room," she says as she hands Harry's key over, "since you're paying for Martha."

"You didn't have to do that."

"It's a gesture, so just take it," Becca says, rolling her eyes. "Besides, it was like forty bucks. Seems about right for this place."

Will looks a little mollified at that, too; Allie knows he's entirely reliant on what he brought with him from his Dollar Tree earnings. Twenty bucks, split with Sam, isn't so bad.

"Let's just get something to eat and then call it a night, check back up on Martha in the morning and then hopefully we can be out of here as soon as possible," Becca says after they all dump their things in their rooms, which, despite not being in the best state, at least seemed clean. Allie'd kept a sharp eye out for roaches but didn't spot any, so there's one fear assuaged.

There's only one place close enough for them to walk to, a tiny burger joint with stool seating at the bar and a single table pushed into the back corner. When they come trailing in, the waitress, who looks to be around their age and is lounging at the counter, looks up and says, "Y'all must be the ones with the broken down car."

"Word travels fast, I guess," Allie mumbles, mostly to Harry, who's next to her. He laughs, which catches the waitress' attention. She eyes him up and down, obviously liking what she sees, and Allie, for whatever reason, decides she needs to sit next to him at the table.

The menu is small and simple, an assortment of different burgers or sandwiches available, with sides of french fries, fried pickles, onion rings, the lot. They order a couple of baskets of fries for everyone to share, and Becca gets a milkshake for her and Sam to split.

When it's Harry's turn to order, the waitress, who'd been perfunctorily writing down the rest of their orders on a small notepad, bats her eyes and says, "And is there anything I can get for _you?_ "

Harry smiles at her, all slow and easy, and replies, his voice smooth, "What would you recommend?"

Allie has to consciously stop herself from making some sort of expression, forces her face to remain neutral, though she feels the corner of her lips pinch inwards in annoyance at first. He's _flirting_ with her. She's brunette and average height and is pretty cute, admittedly, but like. What is he doing? (And why does she care?)

"I think just about everything we have here is good," the waitress says, cocking her hip to one side and adjusting her hair.

"That so?"

She can't take it anymore, is entirely not in control of her actions when she scoots her chair a little closer to Harry and says to him, "If you can't decide, wanna go halfsies? I'll give you some of mine if you give me some of yours." She doesn’t miss the double entendre in her words, nor the way Harry’s mouth twitches.

The waitress is giving her a deadpan sort of look, she can feel it, and she doesn't even want to _think_ about the way Becca's (and Will's...and Sam's) eyebrows are raised. But Harry drops his eyes to her, and there's a glint in them when he says, "Sure, I'd love that."

That glint is a coy and entirely telling and she realizes, too late, that she's been baited into this. He was doing it on purpose—to see her reaction. Her jaw goes a little slack and her face heats up a bit and she doesn't hear what Harry ends up actually ordering, feels her menu being practically snatched out of her hands by the waitress, who now looks properly miffed.

"You...guys good?" Becca asks when the waitress is gone, looking like she's holding in a laugh. Allie tosses her hair back over her shoulder, deciding to play it off.

"Yeah, just got fucking annoyed at Harry thinking he can charm his way around any place. No one needs to see that."

"I wonder why," Will mutters under his breath, but Allie pretends not to hear him. Harry, meanwhile, has his arm stretched out on the back of her chair now, and she tries not to think about how possessive it must look. He's not close enough to touch, but she's hyperaware of his forearm hovering just inches away from the nape of her neck.

The burgers are, surprisingly, fucking delicious. Easily the best thing they've eaten on the trip thus far, including the fancy farm spread from last night.

"Oh my God," Becca moans. "Who knew the best burger joint in the world was in Bumblefuck, Nebraska?"

"Still thinking about going vegan?" Harry asks, and Becca gives him the finger.

"Considering even these burgers aren't enough to make me want to come back here, yes, I am."

They finish up and when the waitress comes back to clear their table and bring their checks, she eyes the arm Harry still has draped around the back of Allie's chair. He placed back there after he finished eating and wiped his hands off with the wet wipes Becca's passed around, because they've been neglected to be given napkins.

"Y'all are in town just for the night, I'm guessing?" She's looking at Harry when she speaks, even though the question is addressed to everyone.

"That's right," Allie says. The waitress barely spares her a glance before moving her eyes back to Harry.

"Well, hey, this isn't a big place, but if you're looking' for something to do at night, there's a bar just a couple blocks down that never cards."

"I think we're gonna call it a night, but thanks," Becca says sweetly, clearly fed up with the weird tension. Harry remains silent, looking faintly smug. The waitress is obviously put out, leaves their check in a huff, and they pay in cash so they can depart as quickly as possible.

"It was nice meeting you," Harry throws over his shoulder as they trail out the door, and Allie, since they're the last ones out and the rest of their group is in front of them, decides it's safe to punch him on the arm. "Ow?" he says in surprise, though he's also smiling. "What was that for?"

"You just can't help yourself, can you?" she says sourly.

He does that slow smile again, drops his voice and says, "Maybe just not around you."

Her breath catches a little, and his smile grows into a grin. She turns away from him and goes to loop arms with Becca instead, as the five of them stroll back in towards the motel.

**

In the room, Allie takes a quick shower while Becca goes through some of the footage she's taken so far. She feels...restless. Almost like this is a repeat of Ohio, only now—they're truly in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do. She comes out without bothering to dry her hair, letting it rest in a wet twist against her shoulder, as Becca takes the bathroom next. 

"Ugh, I feel like there's car grease all over me. Even though I didn't do anything, right?" she complains as she sweeps into the bathroom.

Allie, still wrapped in her towel, checks her phone and sees that her story's been viewed by a bunch of people, with even more people reacting in her DMs. Luke had sent the same clapping emojis Grizz had, and Kelly had reacted with a bunch of hearts. She clicks into her own profile—the last time she posted was spring break, a photo of her and Cassandra on the green together, taken by Becca, when they all decided to have some sort of picnic in the gazebo, even though the weather wasn't exactly nice enough for that yet. It had just rained the day before, and everything was still muggy and wet and they ended up scrapping the idea and going to a restaurant afterwards. The caption says _sister things 💁🏼♀️_ , and the first comment is from Cassandra herself. _def revisiting the picnic concept in the summer_.

She's almost tempted to click into Cassandra's profile, which is still up. She'd looked at it exactly once, a week after, and saw the comments on the most recent post filling up with "rest in peace" messages from old high school classmates that were never really friends with either of them, and from Yale people Allie had never met. She’d closed out of it so quickly that her hand almost spasmed from tapping so hard against the screen.

She doesn't click into it this time, instead going back to review her own, single story again. The wind is loud against the phone mic, all static noise, and her camerawork is shaky. Becca and Sam are beaming, and Harry still has that look. That smirk. When she checks, it looks like he has also viewed the story, despite being just as inactive on the app as she is. She bites her lip, still feeling restless and like the night's not out yet, and decides to text him.

Well, not just text him. She wants to _do_ something.

`**Allie Pressman:**  
are you going to bed?`

`**Harry Bingham:**  
not yet. why?`

`**Allie Pressman:**  
wanna do something crazy?`

She tosses her phone onto the bed before his reply comes through, even though she already knows what it'll be, and dresses quickly, putting her shorts and tank top back on instead of her pajamas. Becca's still in the shower and probably doesn't hear open up the door and step out into the night, though Allie sends her a quick text that says `'going out for a walk, will not get murdered, don't wait up'`. And then she switches back into Harry's message window and sees his reply.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
don't think i'm capable of saying no.`

She's already padding over to his room, two doors down, when she reads it. He opens immediately after she knocks, almost like he'd been waiting.

"Ready to go?" she asks.

He regards her for a moment, reaching out to flick a strand of her wet hair away from her forehead. She can tell from the look on his face that he's thinking about that night in the pool, her hair soaked and slicked back then, too. Before he got his hands in it.

"We going out somewhere?" His tone of voice makes it clear that _staying in_ is a perfectly viable alternative option.

"It's a nice night," she says, ignoring that. "Let's go for a walk."

"That's your idea of crazy?" he chuckles. But he does step out, closes and locks the door behind him.

Allie shrugs. "I'll see what strikes me. There's bound to be something in a shitty town like this, no?"

They head out of the motel together. It really is a nice night—not too humid, just cool enough that the slight breeze feels great as she swings her arms, but still warm enough that she's comfortable with her wet hair and her bare limbs. The downtown strip, if it could even be called that, is tiny, consisting of their motel, the burger joint, a few random buildings for local businesses and shops, most of which are already closed and dark by now.

"I wonder if this is what it's like here," Harry muses. "Nothing to do but walk around looking for something to do."

"I mean, we could go back to the burger place. See if that waitress has any more tips for us. Whatever her name was. Did she even tell us?"

Harry thinks. "Now that you mention it, I don't think she did."

"Kind of a bad tactic if you're trying to hit on a guy, don't you think?"

"Oh, is that what she was doing?" he asks slyly, feigning ignorance.

She rolls her eyes. "Ha-ha. It's just us now, you can stop pretending like you weren't doing it on purpose."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. And then: "Why, were you jealous?"

Allie doesn't dignify that with a response, just presses her lips together and looks up at the sky, where there are about a million stars overhead. He seems to be satisfied with that, because he laughs and then bumps his shoulder against hers.

"How is it that it always ends up being the two of us, wandering around at night?" he says when they round the street corner, having gone a couple blocks by now.

Allie's quiet for a moment, thinking how far she wants to take this, decides she’s feeling reckless enough to say exactly what's on her mind. "That's a little on purpose too, don't you think?"

He looks at her with something like satisfaction, like she'd said the exact thing he'd wanted to hear and yet is still pleasantly surprised at having heard it.

There's a lull as the two of them walk. Around them, the town starts to light up just the slightest bit. Up ahead, Allie sees lights for a one or two bars, probably the ones the waitress had tried to tell them about, though for obvious reasons she's not about to suggest they go to them. Not that she really wants to, in the first place. And then she spots, right on the corner, a dinky lit-up sign, with the first letter blinking and only half-working, that simply says "Tattoo Parlor."

"Think I found my crazy thing," she says, already changing their direction to lead them over there. "Let's get tattoos."

"What?" Harry says, jogging a bit to catch up with her. "Are you serious?" Weirdly, she is. The idea's gotten ahold of her, but she can tell Harry doesn't think she's for real until she's walking into the parlor, the bell overhead jingling. "You _are_ serious?"

She looks over her shoulder at him. "Yeah. Why not?"

He runs a hand through his hair, glancing at the burly, inked-up man at work on another customer in the back, tattoo needle buzzing in the air. The place is tiny and smells like antiseptic, with photos lining the walls of previous ink done on past clients and artwork displays from the artists. In the corner, there's a clear-glass cooler that's full of cheap beer, with a stereo on top of it playing rock music at a low volume. "I can think of a million reasons why not, number one being sanitation."

"Well, I'm not gonna make you get one if you don't want, but I'm doing this," she tells him. Also tells herself, like some sort of challenge.

A woman comes over to them then, her forearms scattered with tattoos that definitely aren't reflective of the cool, single-needle style that Allie had been obsessed with scrolling through on Instagram a year or two ago. She and Cassandra always said that if they were to get any, they'd get them like that, matching designs from some fancy New York artist that requires months of advance booking. It's stupid, but she'll never be able to have that now. So maybe she can just do this instead, as a compromise. Besides, she's eighteen and is on a trip with her friends and is stuck in the middle of nowhere—isn't this the exact time in her life she's supposed to do shit like this?

"Walk-ins?" the woman asks them, leaning against the scratched counter that's scattered with albums and sticker designs.

"Me, not him," Allie says, gesturing with her head over to Harry, who's still hanging back slightly.

"First time? You guys have the broken down car, right?"

She nods to both, and the woman purses her lips. Word really does travel fast, it seems. "I'm Liz," she offers, and then pulls out an album that she pushes over the counter at Allie. "Pick something small, I can take you when you're ready."

"Jesus, you're really going through with this?" Harry says, coming up next to her when Liz leaves her to flip through the album of designs.

"Yup."

He looks at her like he can't quite believe she's real, and then shakes his head a little. "Fine. What are you thinking?"

"How about this one?" She points at a design of a giant heart, with a bunch of ornate swirly lines coming out of it, sparkles and smaller hearts all around. It’s tacky as hell. "I'm thinking around like my lower back area?"

"Yeah, okay, great. What's next, the infinity symbol on your inner wrist?"

"That was about to be my next suggestion."

None of the designs in the album are her style—a lot of teddy bears, hearts, "Mom" designs, that sort of thing. She supposes she should have expected that, from this tiny parlor out in the middle of the Great Plains, but still. Maybe she'll have to can this idea after all.

"Do you know where you wanna get it?" Harry asks.

"What, you mean you don't approve of my tramp stamp idea? What about, like, right under my sideboob? That's a thing, right?"

He looks at her, a half-smile on his lips, but also something serious there. "Not that that wouldn't be kinda hot in its own way, but. Tattoos are supposed to, like, mean something, right? Since they're...you know, permanent."

She sobers up a little. Why is he being so insightful about this? Even though he's right. She already knows where she wants it, too. "Yeah. I want it on my back. Kind of around my shoulder blade area." Because that's where she and Cassandra had agreed to get them, when they were playing with the idea back then, only speculating for fun at the time. She'd get one on her left shoulder blade, and Cassandra would get one on her right. That way they could easily hide it from their parents, if they had to, even though their mom has a tattoo of her own on her ankle.

Allie thinks, then, that she knows what she wants as her tattoo. It should be quick, too, and then they can get out of here.

"I think I'm ready," she calls over to Liz, who comes back to the counter with a raised eyebrow. Rather than point out one of the designs from the album, however, Allie pulls out her phone and scrolls back in her camera roll, until she comes up on the selfie she and Cassandra had taken over spring break, at the gazebo. "That," she says, zooming in and showing the screen to Liz.

"A star?" Liz asks, looking at the zoomed in version of the necklace. "That's it?" Allie nods, and Liz says, "Okay," like it's not really her problem either way.

Harry hovers as Liz guides her over to one of the tattoo chairs, across from the burly man and the even burlier man he's tattooing, and draws the curtain between them to give them some privacy. As Liz busies herself with cleaning the supplies, Allie pulls one arm out of her tank top so her shoulder is bare, along with the area of her back where she wants it. She's glad she's not wearing short sleeves, and doesn't miss the way Harry's eyes are on her as she moves. He's probably thinking about that fluke nude she sent him, the single thin strap of her camisole visible in the corner of the frame.

"You always used to wear that necklace," Harry says, sitting down on a stool next to the chair. "In high school."

Allie lifts her lips a little. "You noticed that?"

He runs a hand along the back of his neck. "I noticed a lot of things about you. You stopped wearing it?"

"After she died, yeah. It used to be hers." It goes without saying that she's talking about Cassandra. "She gave it to me when I was nine, or something. Told me to keep it as a good luck charm before one of her surgeries, which actually ended up having a lot of complications, and...I guess I never really took it off, after that."

"It looked good on you."

"Thanks," she says quietly. "It was too hard, at first, to see myself with it in the mirror—after. And then it got too hard to put it back on. I still have it." It's in the shoebox under her bed, with the polaroids her mom had unstuck from the wall. She touches her hand to her bare collarbone, so used to the thin metal hanging there. "Sometimes I forget I'm not wearing it. But I figured this way, I'll kind of always have it with me, right? And I won't have to be reminded in the mirror every time."

Harry opens his mouth, but then Liz returns and he doesn't get a chance to voice his reply.

**

An hour later, they leave the parlor; Allie has a fresh bandage on her left shoulder, a strip of gauze held down on all four corners with medical tape, a layer of Aquaphor spread across her new tattoo, pink and raised around the edges when Liz held up a mirror for her to see it.

The aftercare instructions are simple for a tattoo this small, barely two inches in diameter all around. Leave the bandage on for twenty-four hours, then wash it off gently with soap, pat it dry, and re-apply the Aquaphor, repeat the process once or twice a day for a few days.

"I can't believe you actually got one there," Harry says when they head back out into the night. Becca had texted her back sometime while she was getting inked, but Allie hasn't checked it yet. She assumes it's fine since it's only a single text, not a barrage, or a missed call. "If you get an infection or something, I get to say I told you so."

"You watched her disinfect the needle yourself!" Allie protests, but she knows Harry's joking. He'd watched, entranced, as Liz worked. It took barely any time at all, since it was such a simple ask, and it didn't really hurt, either, just tiny hot stings that were easy to grit through. No worse than getting a shot at the doctor's office, which is what she'd told Harry when he'd asked. He'd looked a little green around the gills, then, and she suspects he might have a thing about needles or something. But he'd admired the tattoo all the same when Liz was finished, told her it looked hot. Or that it would once it was properly healed; for now, it's still angry and pink.

"It actually is really nice," he says, after a bit. "Maybe I should have gotten one after all."

She laughs, trying to picture Harry with a tattoo of any kind, anywhere. It's...well, it's an incredibly attractive thought. But at the same time, it's not quite his style. Not that she thinks it's necessarily hers, either, and yet here she is. 

"Maybe next time," she quips. As if there'll be another one of these—a cross country trip like this. The idea of _after_ all of this is incredibly big and looming and, as much as possible, Allie tries not to think about it. She's certainly not going to start now and let it ruin the vibe of the night.

It's late by now, beyond time for them to have slept if they’re to rise as early as Becca wants to go back to the mechanic and pick up Martha.

"I know I've asked this before, but...regretting coming along yet? Now that you know I'll spontaneously get tattoos? Every parent's worst nightmare."

Harry shakes his head, amused. "You can keep asking, and I'm gonna keep saying no." He looks at her a little curiously. "You're still full of surprises."

"Yeah?" She scuffs her foot against the sidewalk, sending some tiny pebbles scattering. "Scare you away yet?"

"Not quite. Maybe the opposite."

She likes hearing that.

They reach the motel; the lobby is dark, but the single lamp at the service counter is on, lighting their path as they find their way up the stairs and down the single hallway to the left, where their rooms are. The air, suddenly, feels charged—with something like electricity, or maybe whatever it is that they've left undone. All their previous nights spent together feel like a completely out of order lead-up. Making out in the pool, the dirty texts, the weird heart-to-heart walking back to the farm. Everything's all flipped around from how the order is supposed to go, from what they tell you should happen in books and movies and TV shows.

In between both of their doors, Allie puts her hands in her back pockets, the bandage on her shoulder blade flexing with her as she moves her arms, secure in its place. Harry wets his lips, hesitates, and the air around them is so heavy. She bites her bottom lip, waiting for him to ask her into his room, because she's going to say yes, and then they can... They can get back on track. Finally go down the road they've been headed towards this whole time.

He still doesn't ask, and the words are inching on the tip of her own tongue instead. If he doesn't do it, she will. _Going to invite me in or what, Bingham?_ But then he looks backwards at the door to Allie's room, almost like he's weighing his options, before squaring his jaw and saying, "Sweet dreams, Allie." Just like he'd said in his text, only this time the words are accompanied by his _voice_ , low and heated and completely bare to what he's actually thinking. What he's actually wanting.

But he doesn't act on it, for some reason. Turns away, goes into his own room, and so does she, because—well, it's just not practical, is it? Becca's right there, asleep, when she re-enters, the curtains drawn and the entire room dark. Allie finally checks her phone then, the glow of it hurting her eyes, and sees Becca's text from earlier.

`**Becca Gelb:**  
have fun with harry :)`

She sighs heavily, pressing her back against the door and resting the crown of her head against the hard surface. She accidentally leans too hard and the tattoo under her bandage stings, so she lets up, but the frustration doesn't go away. This is her fault again, isn't it? She's kind of been the one dictating how far they'll go, what they can and can't do, and when.

But tonight's been all about following her impulses, acting out while she can. Because here, no one knows her. Here, the consequences don't matter, not when they'll be speeding off to another state in the morning, until they're all the way on the other side of the country, until Allie's boarding a plane back to the East Coast and leaving this transient, nebulous journey behind for bigger, scarier, more _permanent_ things.

She decides she's not done being crazy for tonight. Why shouldn't she let herself have this? All they've done since the day they left is dance around each other.

Steeling her nerves, she turns and opens the motel door as quietly as she can and steps back out into the hallway. Marches the few yards to Harry's room. Knocks, also as quietly as she can.

He opens immediately, like he'd already been standing by the door. "I was just about to text you," he says in a low voice, when he sees her there, wearing a defiant expression.

"Yeah? What were you gonna say?"

He swallows. "I think you know."

She raises a brow. "So say it."

He looks her up and down. Her hair is dry now, in its most natural state, curly and wild and all over the place, hanging past her shoulders. She's still in the same tank top and shorts, the left strap slightly stretched out of place from being pulled aside at the tattoo parlor. "You wanna come inside?"

She nods, and without preamble, moves past the small gap between his body and the door, until she's standing in the tiny hallway that leads into the even tinier room, just a square layout with a single bed in the center, a shitty dresser at the foot and a chair off to the side that's got his duffel on top of it. It's dim, with only the bedside lamp on, bathing everything in a weak, incandescent orange.

He comes up behind her, hovering, close, but not touching. He's waiting for her to make the move, which has kind of been her MO in recent days. She breathes in, and then turns, looks up at him with her eyes open wide. Reaches up to put her hands on his chest, slides them up until her fingertips meet, around the base of his neck. He's looking down at her, still waiting.

"Kiss me."

He does, tilting his head when he leans in and then his lips are on hers, her face cupped in his hands, and he does that thing he did the first time, pressing his fingers against her jaw to maneuver the angle of the kiss a little bit and she makes this _noise_ , her mouth opening under his. She backs them up, pulling her with him, until she's flush against the wall, and he's up against her. Her new tattoo stings a little again at the contact, but she doesn't care right now, is too busy feeling out the cut of his jaw, the skin of his neck. He hasn't moved his hands from near her face and neck, either. She remembers his hand against her bare waist, her bare back, that night in the pool, and wants that. Wants more than that. But then she realizes he's waiting, again. For directions from her.

"Touch me," she says, pulling away slightly, whispering the words against the side of his face.

He does that too, finally dropping his hands to her hips, then sliding them up so they're under her tank top, hot against her waist, reaching further up to press against the outside edge of her bra. She puts her hands in his hair and makes a noise again, and he's got his mouth against her neck, now, probably tasting the soap from her shower earlier along with any sweat that'd gathered while they ventured out into town. His thigh moves between her legs, and he's taking a little more control now, but still—still not as much as she wants. She tugs at his hair insistently, and he says her name lowly against her collarbone. "Touch me," she repeats, more demanding this time, and her name morphs into an amused breath as one of his hands slides from her waist, down past her hip, into the waistband of her shorts, into her panties. Where she wants him, where she’s wet for him. He presses and she makes another noise and her shoulder stings more as she jolts against the wall. She doesn't care.

He gets the hint after that, finally takes the lead, brings both of them over to the bed.

**

He’s propped up against the shitty wooden headboard as she pulls her discarded clothing back on, being careful around her still-bandaged shoulder. "I didn't hurt you, did I? With that."

She grabs her phone from the floor, where it'd fallen from the pocket of her shorts. "Nah. It's so small, I think it'll be fine. Not like the ink's going anywhere."

"But you are?"

Allie shrugs. "Becca's in the room. Kinda have to be there when she wakes up." Even though...the way he looks right now, his hair all tousled, bare-chested, skin flushed, the blankets down low on his hips. And the way he'd made her _feel_ —staying is tempting. But no—she has to go.

Before she slips out, she turns to him, deciding she has to know. "Why didn't you just ask me to come in, before? I know you wanted to."

He sits up a little more, clears his throat, looks hesitant. Almost bashful, which is a little ridiculous, considering what they just did. How he’d _moved_. It’s cute. "I thought. Like maybe you thought we weren't allowed, or something. Last night, you seemed kinda...far away. And every other time you would initiate something, and then stop, and. I don’t know. It seemed like you weren’t sure if you actually wanted this. Me."

It's true, she was being reticent last night. Maybe the other nights, too. But she's not anymore, and the look on his face is... She crosses back over to the bed, kisses him on the mouth again, one hand against his cheek, the other leaning against the shees. "I want this," she whispers, and she feels his smile against her lips. "And you."

He's still smiling as she leaves the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is unrelated to the fic but if you keep up with me on any other socials, you might know that my old tumblr got terminated earlier in the week (rip...) so PSA that i now have a new one (below) that i'll be posting updates to, as well as drabbles/prompt fills/general TS things. ♡
> 
> [tumblr](https://new-ham.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/aIliepressman)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s quickly dawning on Allie that they’re on day five of the trip, with only three days left before LA, and then home, and then...she doesn’t know what the next “and then” is, just knows she wants Harry while she can have him.

Martha’s as good as new in the morning.

Becca thanks Lou, who seems to have let her grow on him (as all people do), profusely before they head out. Harry goes inside the shop to take care of the bill—however much it is, Allie has no clue—and then Lou gives Martha two solid taps on the roof as they pull out of the garage. And then they’re swinging back onto I-80, ready to get back on track. 

All in all, they haven’t been waylaid enough by the unexpected overnight pit stop enough to throw a wrench into their original schedule. In fact, they’re leaving a little earlier than they might have otherwise, and Becca tells them she’s planning to stop in Denver so they can all have lunch and see the city for a tiny window before they head to Twin Lakes, where they’re camping tonight. She’s behind the wheel again after Martha’s near-death experience, says Martha needs a woman’s touch after being treated so poorly.

Allie has, without a word, climbed into the third row with Harry. No one says anything, but Will gives her kind of a look from the passenger seat. Sam, bless him, takes it in stride and immediately puts on Prisoner of Azkaban, and the three of them settle in for their viewing. Harry hasn’t said anything either, but he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. He’d looked at her this morning in the lobby, too—she’s wearing black Lululemon leggings that she’s aware make her ass look good (she knows Harry noticed) and a pale pink crop top today, short-sleeved to cover up the tattoo bandage that she won’t get to peel off until later tonight. It’s supposed to be sporty, or whatever, because they’re going to be in the woods later in the evening.

She’s not sure why she hasn’t told Becca or anyone else about the tattoo. She has a feeling they’d make a big fuss about it, and also read too much into it and take it as a sign of her finally going through the reactionary stage of acting out and being crazy, or something. But it’s also nice, having it to herself for a while, as a special thing that only she knows is there. And Harry, of course, who delicately adjusts the collar of her top when it slips down her shoulder just slightly as they’re watching the movie, exposing the top edge of the medical tape.

“Thanks,” she whispers. He just nods, lets his fingers trail for half a second over the junction of her neck and shoulder. She wets her lips, shoots a nervous glance around the car, but everyone’s facing forward, watching either the movie or the road.

On some level, the apprehension she’d felt the day after they made out in the pool is gone. Not completely, but—she knows she definitely wants to do it again, with him. Kind of as much as possible, which she’s not ashamed to admit in the privacy of her own mind. It’s quickly dawning on her that they’re on day five of the trip, with only three days left before LA, and then home, and then...she doesn’t know what the next “and then” is, just knows she wants Harry while she can have him. (Especially now that she knows what he’s capable of, and when she thinks about what _else_ they could do...she has to suppress a shiver.) 

Even though she dropped immediately off into sleep after getting back to the room last night (being so physically tired definitely helped, because that counts as exercise, right?), Allie finds herself nodding off during the movie. Which sucks, because this one’s her and Sam’s favorite; they used to watch it on repeat as kids, which annoyed the fuck out of Cassandra, who was never much of a Potter fan.

Harry catches her doing the classic head-drop onto her chest and rolls his eyes, scooting over to the far edge of the seat, against the window. “Just lay down and take a nap already.”

She purses her lips and looks at him, then down at his lap, because surely he’s moved all the way over with the intention of having her lay her head on it, right? Back here, the third row might as well be words away from the driver’s seat. But Sam’s still right there, and even the scent of Harry’s cologne, fresh and woodsy, isn’t enough to tempt her into taking the bait right in front of everyone. Not again.

“Fine,” she says, settling her head down at the other end of the window and propping her feet into his lap. Her shoes are kicked off under the second row somewhere; no one sitting back here really bothers wearing them when the drive is this long, airplane-style.

That doesn’t work as well as she thought it might, because he just smiles at her, takes her ankles in his hands and gets her legs positioned more securely in his lap. Her leggings only go down to about the midpoint of her shin, so he rubs circles onto her bare skin, across the jut of her ankle bone and upwards, thumb teasing just barely underneath the seam of the fabric. She closes her eyes, glad that Sam’s sitting directly in front of Harry so there’s no way he can see what’s going on, as Harry continues. Jesus, they’re her fucking _ankles_ , she feels like a Puritan for finding this as hot as she does, but. He runs a nail across the thin skin above her foot and she almost kicks him, has to open her eyes to glare at him. He’s not even looking at her, though the corner of his mouth is turned upwards.

Despite Harry’s best efforts, she does manage to fall asleep, at least until they’re pulling into the city area proper. When she wakes up, Harry’s also asleep, his head against the window, one hand still resting across her leg. It doesn’t look comfortable, to be honest, and his thighs have probably gone numb by now, so she folds her legs and sits up.

“Oh, thank God,” Becca says when she catches Allie righting herself in the rearview mirror. “I was two seconds away from blasting music to get everyone to wake up.” Next to her, Will also seems to be knocked out.

Allie glances over at Harry, whose eyes are still closed. “You should do it anyway.”

Becca grins devilishly and reaches for the volume dial, and suddenly Rina Sawayama is screaming at everyone to _’give me just a little bit more.’_ Harry and Will bolt upright, and Allie laughs so hard her stomach hurts at the look of distress and confusion on his face, a red mark across his cheek from where it’d been pressed into the window. Even Sam is jolted in his seat by the sudden increase in bass before Becca turns it back down, snickering.

“You could have just said we were here,” Harry says sourly, fixing his hair back into its sexy-when-pushed-back state from where it’d been falling all over his forehead. He’s still all disoriented, though, and impulsively, Allie whips out her phone and snaps a photo. It comes out all blurry, but that kind of fits with the vibe, she thinks, so she keeps it.

  


**

  


“We’re splitting up,” Becca says when they’ve parked Martha in a garage and are out in the streets. “I’m not having the Chicago situation all over again. Pick what you want and let’s all meet back here in an hour and a half, yeah?”

Allie’s almost afraid that Becca’s going to loop their arms together and whisk her off somewhere, leaving the boys alone, so she can drag information out of Allie about the Harry situation. But she doesn’t, pairs with Sam instead, the duo inseparable as always. There are things that just the two of them share, Allie knows; it’s sweet, honestly. She’s glad they have each other, that they’ll continue to have each other in LA, though it does make her remember when she had someone like that in Cassandra. They weren’t best friends the way Sam and Becca are, but...she was always there. 

“You guys can choose, I don’t mind,” she says to Harry and Will, who are standing around awkwardly. It’s clear they both want to go with her—probably for different reasons—but she’s not about to force either one to go off alone, nor is she going to go somewhere by herself and force them to hang out together, even if they’ve been getting along just fine ever since the diner on the first day. This is a nice group, anyway, for her. She likes both these guys, in different ways.

“I don’t care either way,” Harry says. She can tell he’s just trying to be polite; she very much remembers the tantrum he’d thrown in Chicago over eating stereotypical food, though there isn’t really a Denver equivalent.

“Do we know where Sam and Becca are going?” Will asks.

“Nope,” Allie shakes her head. “It’s all up to us.”

Will has some opinions, because he’s secretly a foodie, which Allie’d known but somehow forgotten about. Probably because she hasn’t properly hung out with him in months. He and Harry end up scrolling through the options that come up on Google Maps together, cross-referencing their Yelp reviews, which Will points out are bullshit and bought-out, and looking up TripAdvisor and Eater lists for best food spots. Personally, Allie thinks it’s a bit too involved for the quick stopover they have here (and also, she’s starving and will settle for fast food at this point), but she lets them be snobby about it together. It’s nice that they have this in common.

They decide on a Vietnamese bakery about fifteen minutes away that has, according to the Internet, the best banh mi in the city. Allie’s game, she’s never had that before, because West Ham is decidedly not diverse enough to have a dedicated Vietnamese place.

“This kid I used to share a home with back in middle school was obsessed with them, his old host family was Vietnamese,” Will tells them as they cross an intersection. “I haven’t had one since then.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, because, well. Not a lot of people know about Will’s actual situation. A lot of people at school thought of him as conceptually poor and unfortunate, didn’t realize that he’s an actual, real life example of a person who’s gone through the system, bounced back and forth between various places before ending up with shitty old Roger on the outskirts of town.

“I’ve, uh, also had them,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate, likely because he feels bad that his Vietnamese food experience is probably a lot more extravagant than Will’s. Allie and Will look at each other and roll their eyes.

Allie can see why the kid Will knew was obsessed. It might be the perfect sandwich, she thinks when she bites into one. The pickled carrots and radish are her favorite parts, tangy and sour, sharply cutting through the pate and pork. Harry picks the jalapeños off his, and Allie almost makes fun of him for it, but opts for swiping them off his plate instead.

“Cassandra used to be obsessed with pickled jalapeños,” she comments, popping a slice of one into her mouth and letting the numb spice coat her tongue. “It would give her the worst gas, though. Like, toxic, Chernobyl-y fumes.”

Will stares at her, uncomfortable, and she’s forgotten that she hardly ever talks about Cassandra in front of him or Becca or Sam. It’s just that Harry’s also here, so the tidbit slipped out without her thinking twice about it. Harry, though, doesn’t notice Will’s discomfort. He wrinkles his nose and says, “Okay, gross. We’re trying to eat?”

Allie shrugs playfully, pops another one of Harry’s discarded jalapeños into her mouth. Will looks briefly between them before his shoulders un-clench, and he apparently decides it’s fine to continue eating and chatting like normal.

They have some time when they’re done before they need to get back to the garage meeting spot, so Allie finds a nearby park on Google Maps that’s supposed to have an amazing view of the Rockies looming over the city, ice-capped and white even at this time of year. They can just walk for a bit, she suggests, but then Harry says they should go on without him and he’ll meet them back at the garage.

He’s cryptic about why he wants to split when Allie tries to press further, so she relents, just says, “Okay, weirdo,” and heads out with Will.

“What was all that about?” Will asks once they’re alone. Above them, the mountains tower, and it seems like they’re finally in the part of the country that doesn’t suffer from extreme humidity in the summer. Allie thinks she could stay out in this kind of weather all year round.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You two are like, always around each other. Figured you might have an idea.”

Allie frowns. “We’re not _always_. I’m with you now, aren’t I?”

Will laughs a little. “Hey, I’m not judging. It’s just an observation. I already told you what I think about you two.”

“Where is this coming from?” she asks, eyeing him suspiciously. “He and I were kind of friendly in high school, sure, but like. I wouldn’t call us close.”

She doesn’t want to inspect the truth—or lack thereof—to that statement. They know a lot of things about each other. Things that other people don’t. Things they’ve learned in an extremely short span of time.

“He makes you smile,” Will says. It’s remarkably similar to the comment Sam had made the other day, something along the same lines. “And I missed seeing that.”

Allie loves her friends. She loves Will, she really does. And then she’s struck, once again, with a vague sense of sadness and guilt that her change in behavior (brought about by Harry Bingham, for whatever reason) is stark enough to be verbally pointed out.

“You guys are all talking about us behind our backs, aren’t you?” she sighs, leaning her shoulder into him. He laughs, but neither confirms nor denies. “We’re just friends.”

Friends who want to sleep together, _do_ sleep together, but Will doesn’t need to know that. She feels good about calling Harry her friend. It feels true.

  


**

  


When they return to the garage, Becca and Sam aren’t back yet, but Harry is. He’s still cryptic when Will and Allie ask where he’d gone, and then Allie has to pee, so she heads to the single-user bathroom around the corner from the garage pay station, past the cement curve where Martha is parked.

She splashes water on her face and fixes her hair into a ponytail, but then realizes that might make the edge of her tattoo bandage a little more apparent if it happens to poke out of her neckline again, so lets her hair back down. She desperately wants to peel back the gauze and look at it, but Liz had been adamant about waiting the full twenty-four hours. It’s starting to itch underneath the tape, kind of uncomfortable and gross from having been stuck there so long. She can’t wait to take it off; maybe Harry could help her reach.

When she exits the bathroom, it’s to a hand grabbing at her wrist, then moving to her shoulder to pin her back against the bathroom door. She almost yelps, until Harry chuckles, slides his hands around her jaw, and kisses her. 

Allie doesn’t know what brought this on, but she weirdly enjoys the spontaneity of it; this is the first time he’s initiated anything on his own between them. She takes his lower lip between her teeth and he makes an amused huff, gets one hand under her crop top, the other going against her ass. She _knew_ he was staring, earlier in the morning.

Then she realizes that they’re totally out in the open, anyone could come rounding the corner and catch them like this, but she doesn’t pull away immediately. Just adds some of her sudden urgency into the kiss before finally parting. “What was that for?” she asks, breathless.

He flexes his fingers against her ass, brazen, before sliding them up to her hip instead. “Just had to do it,” he says, smirking. “Couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

She flushes, and then she pushes him away for real, because it’s going to be suspicious if they’re both gone for this long. “Be good,” she says sternly. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

“I make no promises.” She thinks he’s only half-joking. Her heart beats loud in her ears.

“Come back in five minutes, okay?” She pushes at his chest lightly so he’ll let her by. He does, but she lets her fingers linger for a little longer than necessary before she goes back up the ramp curve to Martha.

Sam and Becca are there when she returns, looking through Will’s phone at some of the photos of the Rockies they took at the park, along with photos of their lunch. “Did you guys pick a good spot?” Allie asks, curious to know where the two of them had gone off.

Sam only shrugs one shoulder. “Eh. It was okay,” he says, and then he doesn’t offer any more. Becca focuses on scrolling through Will’s photos, clicking her tongue at his lack of artistry, or whatever. Okay, Allie thinks, it’s some kind of trend or something to be mysterious in Denver, apparently. That’s fine, she’s not here to force anything out of anyone. 

They hit the road once Harry returns, Becca behind the wheel once again. It’s only two hours to Twin Lakes, so they all just sit and zone out and idly chat in the car. Allie sits in the second row this time, because she doesn’t trust herself around Harry all of a sudden, after this morning and then their surprise secret make out.

He gets it, shoots her this private little smirk as he climbs past her to get into the third row. She has to turn her head away in order not to react.

  


**

  


There’s some fuss when they realize they only have two tents among them, originally intended to house Becca and Allie in one, Will and Sam in the other.

Becca says they can find a Walmart nearby to get Harry a tent and a sleeping bag or something, but he doesn't want to hold the group up, says he'll just sleep in the car. Allie looks at him like he has two heads, because she cannot for the life of her picture Harry Bingham resorting to sleeping in a car. But he insists there's no point in getting all this shit for just one night and that he'll survive.

It's late afternoon by the time they pull up to the campgrounds. Just enough time to go swimming in the lake before it gets too cold, Sam tells them as they unload Martha in the small lot assigned to their designated camping spot.

"I didn't pack a suit," Allie says, hoping she can dodge the activity without too many questions. Normally Becca would point out that there's a gift shop just five minutes down the path where she could just buy one, but she stays quiet. Seems kind of lost in thought, actually, only half-paying attention to unrolling her sleeping bag inside the pop-up tent while Sam stakes it into the ground. Allie decides to take advantage of her distracted state, and just assumes that means no one's going to make her go in the water. She would, normally, but she can't because of the tattoo.

"I guess you and I will just stay on shore," Will says, dusting his hands off after he and Harry help set up the second tent. Harry, somehow, had taken one look at the direction manual and automatically known what to do.

"I'm not going either," Harry says, sliding his hands into his pockets. Just the three of them again, it seems. "Doesn't seem worth it. Can you even shower here?"

"Yeah, there's a facility just up the road," Allie points out, breaking out a bottle of bug spray, because they've only been here for maybe half an hour and she's already getting eaten alive.

The lake itself is beautiful, blue-green and clear and lapping in small waves against the narrow strip of sandy shore, surrounded by a ridge of snow-capped mountains on all sides that transition into steely grays and then emerald greens for all the treetops. The three of them sit in a row while Sam and Becca get in, floating on their backs and lazing. Allie is just a tad jealous, wishes she could jump in also, while Harry looks disdainfully at the mess of lake weed covering the left hand side of the bank. Definitely not the pristine beaches he's probably used to, Allie thinks.

"Kinda wish I could get in there with them," Will says, leaning back on his hands. She smiles at how they’d been thinking the same thing. It does look nice, like some kind of sleepaway camp remnant.

"Why don't you?" Harry asks.

"I don't know how to swim."

Harry looks utterly confused. "What? How do you not know how to swim?"

Will shrugs one shoulder. "Who was supposed to teach me? My parents? Or some fancy youth swim class?"

Harry closes his mouth, considering. It had struck Allie as strange the first time, too, being confronted with the realization that Will wasn't raised with the same conditions and privileges that Harry and Allie had. Better late than never to realize it, she supposes. "Fair enough," Harry says, and that's that.

It's so nice out and Becca looks so good in the water that Allie decides to go through Becca's things to extract the camera and record some of it, figuring that Becca would want this portion of the trip documented as well. Becca shouts in delight when she spots Allie with it, waving her arms at them from up on the floating dock positioned out in the middle of the water. She and Sam jump off it while holding hands, and behind the camera, Allie laughs. Then she pans over to Will, on one side of her, who smiles and does a fingergun motion, and then to Harry on the other.

In the viewfinder, Harry's dappled with the sunlight filtered through the dense trees overhead, the small breeze from the lake blowing gently through his hair. He winks for her on camera, and he looks so _good_ that she has to pause, flick her eyes up from the viewfinder frame and just...take him in. He notices, smiles and ducks his head down to his chest, phone spinning in his hands. To keep them busy, she thinks, otherwise maybe he'd be reaching for her.

And then he clicks into his own camera, takes one of her still holding the camcorder up at him.

“Hey,” she says, nudging her sandy foot against his. “That’s not how this works.”

“Says who? You get to record me but I can’t get you?”

Allie sticks her tongue out at him, and he gets a picture of that, too.

  


**

  


Dinner is at the sleepaway camp-style mess hall buffet ten minutes away from their campsite, provided by the campground, which they trail to after Sam and Becca wring themselves out and change into dry clothes.

After their stellar lunch, Allie doesn't really want to hedge her bets and decides to go with the tried and true breakfast for dinner, loads up her plate with silver dollar pancakes and maple syrup, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon. Just about everyone raises their eyebrows at her when she sits down at the table they've staked out.

"Okay," Will says, laughing, "kind of a power move. I respect it."

"We love a good brinner," Sam signs.

"You're losing me here," Harry says, and Allie shoots him a look with pursed lips. "It's just not right."

"You hear that?" Allie says, cutting into a pancake. "Rich boy thinks he's above having breakfast after dark."

"Is this like, an actual thing? People do this?"

Both Will and Sam look at Harry like he's crazy. "You've never just been lazy and decided to make eggs for dinner?" Will asks.

"Yeah, it's like my mom's go-to thing when she doesn't have a ton of time to cook for all of us," Allie says.

Harry shifts, a bit uncomfortably. "Not really. We usually just ordered food."

Allie remembers, then, the crazy fucked up situation with his mom and maybe his sister, and then she feels bad for teasing. It's probably not too bold of her to assume the Binghams aren't exactly a sit-down dinner type of family. Will, always sensitive to these kinds of things, seems to also catch on, and they all stop trying to roast Harry after that.

Sitting closest to the wall their table is pushed against, Becca's being unusually quiet. Allie would have thought she'd join in on making fun of Harry, or maybe she'd defend him or something, considering they seem to get along pretty well, but she's scrolling through her phone instead, distracted with something. Probably reviewing photos and running them through her editing apps, Allie thinks, curating her Instagram to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible.

"Are we campfiring again tonight?" Allie asks after dinner, as they all stroll in a group back towards their site. Around them, night is falling fast, made darker by the dense woods around them, though there are reflective markers to guide their path back, and Sam's making use of his phone flashlight.

At that, Becca seems to perk up from whatever introspection she's been stuck in ever since lunch. "Yes! Obviously! Family fire time," she says, latching onto Allie's arm. "We bought marshmallows at the last gas station."

There's already a starter rock circle around a pile of sooty earth left behind by their site's previous occupants that they decide to repurpose. Sam and Will gather wood while Allie digs through Martha with Harry for the bug spray again, because the mosquitoes have returned with a vengeance now that it's night time. She has to spray Harry down liberally, too, until both of them are sticky with DEET.

"Jesus," he complains after, rubbing his palms down his shiny forearms. "The bugs alone might make me never want to do this again."

"You're being a baby," she tells him. "It’s not the end of the world. We're all getting bites."

Harry mutters something under his breath about his skin being compromised or whatever, and Allie snorts, a sudden rush of fondness for him washing over her. She glances around to make sure they're alone, then bunches her fingers into his t-shirt fabric around his abdomen, pulling him in towards her. "This isn't exactly my thing, either," she confesses, as he raises one hand to hers, the one at his shirt front, holding her wrist gently. "But I bet I can make it worth your while."

"Oh," he says, a wicked grin edging onto his lips. "Don't you worry. I've got that all planned out."

"Yeah? Been thinking about it a lot, have you?"

"Am I supposed to feel bad about it?"

She presses her lips together, a pleased feeling blooming in her stomach. Their allotted parking area is a good ways away from where their tents are, so they're completely secluded—save for the other guests grabbing things from their cars or leaving for the night—but she lets go of his shirt, and he lets his hand drop from her wrist. They can't act out like this for the second time in one day, or they're going to get found out in absolutely no time at all.

"I think if I kissed you right now it'd probably taste like bug spray," she jokes. He chuckles, and keeps his hands in his pockets when he follows her back to their campsite.

The fire is well stoked by the time they return, also with the package of marshmallows hanging around Allie's wrist in a plastic grocery bag. Everyone else is perched on a wide log that they've rolled next to the fire, and Allie helps distribute marshmallows to spear on top of the metal pokers Becca had gotten off Amazon for this exact occasion, because no matter how much they make fun of Harry for being prissy, no one wants to eat food off an actual stick.

Allie sits next to Harry, with Sam on the other side, because that's literally the only space left on the end of the log. She thinks it might be better this way, actually, because she doesn't have to see his face. The way he might have looked at her from across the flames. She doesn't know if she'd be able to handle that, right now. And she can pretend the heat she feels from his proximity, his thigh pressing against hers, is from the fire and the fire alone.

"You two were gone a while," Becca says, wagging her eyebrows, even though this time they really weren't.

"No, we weren't," Harry automatically replies, but Allie rolls her eyes. That's the wrong approach.

"Yeah, we went to go join an orgy two tents down," she says dryly. Will nearly chokes on his spit, guffawing. "You know, normal getting to know you activities."

"You're not slick, Allie Pressman," Becca says.

"One of the people two tents down might disagree with you."

Even Sam laughs, shaking his head at her. As they chat, he hands her a flask that she realizes the three of them must have been passing around for a little while now, by how loose and less-filtered Becca is, and the red around Sam's ears that she can just catch in the firelight. She unscrews the top, takes a sniff—it's gin, Becca's usual liquor of choice. And then she takes a sip, just to be polite. It's hot going down her throat, settles somewhere in her stomach. She glances briefly at Harry, feeling just a tad bit guilty. He shrugs, makes a little face like, _it’s no big deal_. Like she shouldn’t feel bad for enjoying herself. 

She doesn’t drink any more though, passes the flask back over to the others so they can share it amongst themselves. They’re telling more stories about best moments of the year from school, like when a couple of guys on the football team decided to cover the principal’s car in duct tape and plastic wrap.

“I still have no clue how they didn’t get caught,” Will says, shaking his head.

“I think they were acting on advice from Jason and Clark,” Becca hums. “Carrying on their legacy or something.”

“Okay, that makes it even more incredible that they didn’t get caught,” Sam says.

Harry’s quiet, probably because he hadn’t been there for it. Allie’s quiet too, because she does remember that happening. It was in February, and she sent the pictures to Cassandra, wanting to laugh with her about it, because their principal is a total dick. But Cassandra thought it was dumb and immature, which annoyed Allie to no end. She doesn't think it's worth revisiting that out loud and ruining their reminiscing, though. Plus, she's also preoccupied with the way Harry is just...next to her.

He's not even doing anything other than _being_. But it's like she can sense his energy, or something, because sitting there next to him is making her buzz. She crosses her legs, then uncrosses them, then hooks them at the ankles, fidgety and restless. She doesn't even notice her marshmallow turning black in the fire until Becca points it out to her, pausing to say, "Uh, Allie, you wanna take care of that?"

"Ugh," Allie laments, peering at it on the end of her poker. "Shame."

"Here," Harry offers, holding his out to her. His marshmallow's a perfect golden brown. "Trade, I like 'em better burnt."

She eyes him. "Yeah, there's burnt, and then there's inedible," she says, looking at the black, gooey mess on her poker skeptically.

"Just take it," he insists, forcing his stick into her hands and taking hers. She gives in, only because his marshmallow actually does look perfect and toasted. It's just as good as it looks when she bites into it, catching a bit of fluff on the corner of her mouth with her tongue as she tries not to let it get everywhere. Harry's eyes are on her, not even bothering to attempt to eat her definitely toxic marshmallow.

She nudges his leg slightly with her knee to let him know to quit staring, but all he does is push his leg back against hers in response, on purpose.

"Just fucking throw it away and get a new one already," Allie says, taking a second bite. Harry licks his lips, but he listens. Becca titters, but doesn't linger once Sam brings up how they're now destined to hate each other since they're going to USC and UCLA respectively. Becca's adamantly against that, and then they start daydreaming about moving to West Hollywood once they finish freshman year. Will asks, again, for a breakdown of the different LA neighborhoods, and remains utterly confused after Becca and Sam lay it out for them, despite everything they know being from hours of Internet research, since either have yet to actually live in the city.

Allie drifts back to being distracted by Harry's proximity. He keeps shooting her these furtive glances and every time she looks over at him, she has to blink away because of how sharp his features are in the firelight. She’s always thought he was hot but...is it possible for a person to become _more_ attractive in just the span of a few days? Like, exponentially so?

Within the depths of her logical reasoning, she knows it’s not Harry changing, though; it’s her perception of him. But thinking about that makes something jittery and scary blossom in her stomach, so she kicks the notion to the corner of her mind. She’s exceptionally practiced at compartmentalizing these days, so it’s easy to do.

  


**

  


Eventually, Allie’s antsy enough to call it quits early.

A spot under her bandage is itching badly, and it’s starting to feel gross after having stayed there for probably more than twenty-four hours at this point. She’s dying to wash it off, and also to _look_ at it. Harry clears his throat when she stands, brushing against him because of how close they’d been sitting, but doesn't say anything. She doesn't feel so bad about leaving him with the group anymore, now that she knows everyone can get along without problems.

"I'll see you back at the tent," she says to Becca, who tells her, again, not to get murdered. It's dark and they're in the middle of the woods, so maybe this time it's a valid concern. Tiny moths start flocking to her phone flashlight when she holds it up to illuminate her walk to the shower facility along one of the few man-made paved paths, her toiletries bag and a pair of flip flops for the shower in her other hand.

At this time of night, it's relatively empty, so she hangs her towels and clean clothes on a couple of hooks and sets her small bag of skincare stuff on the ledge above. She also manages to get the large mirrored area over the sinks to herself, so she decides to pull up her shirt all the way over her left arm and reach around with her other hand to work at some of the tape edges, which by now have started peeling back on their own. 

It’s a shiny, gross mess of skin with all the leftover petroleum jelly, but the tattoo underneath isn’t pink and raw around the edges anymore. She carefully wipes it off with a damp tissue; it’s starting to scab a little, which Liz told her would happen, but overall she thinks it looks pretty great, the star sitting in stark black against the pale skin of her shoulder blade.

In the shower, she’s careful to not scrub at it the way she does the rest of her body, just lets the soapy water run over it and gingerly pats at it with her towel when she gets out. It looks even better now, after a wash, the ink settled and the skin around it no longer as sensitive. After she dries herself off, Allie dabs some more Aquaphor on it and then carefully slips a t-shirt over her head.

When she picks her phone up from the ledge above the towel hooks, there are a few messages on the screen—a couple from her parents, replying to the photos she sent them earlier in the day, and a couple from Harry. She clears off the notification from her parents and clicks into Harry's.

`**Harry Bingham:**  
fire's out, everyone went to bed.`

`come to the car.`

Allie bites her lip. Her skin is still damp from the shower, and her hair's wet, which seems to be a theme for them, soaking through the back of her shirt. Her pulse races a little as she gathers her stuff together in her canvas tote bag and leaves the shower and restroom facility. Instead of veering right to head into the trail leading towards the campsites, she bears left, going off to the dirt parking area where Harry's sectioned off for the night.

He's sitting on Martha's hood when he comes into view, looking at his phone, though he picks his head up when he hears her approaching. Even through the dark, she can see his grin.

"Don't let Becca catch you on top of her like that," Allie calls out, referring to Martha. The rest of the lot is empty, the scant few cars left dark and devoid of people. "She'll have a fit."

And then Harry turns his body slightly towards her, bringing his other arm into view, and she realizes he's not only holding his phone, but has got a joint in his other hand, freshly lit and glowing at the tip. Her jaw drops open slightly.

"Surprise," he says as she reaches the car, then slides up onto the hood next to him. "You want?"

Allie stares at him incredulously. "Is _this_ what you were doing when you went off alone earlier today? Getting weed?"

Harry shrugs. "Just a couple grams. What about it? It's legal here."

"Yeah, if you're twenty-one."

He waves a hand, as if that's a small detail. Which she supposes it is, because it's not like she's never done it before, and clearly that's the case for him too. "But aren't you...didn't you tell me...," she says, thinking about their walk back to the farmhouse in Iowa, all he revealed to her about his issues with vices.

"This is different," he says, blowing a stream of smoke out into the night air. It's actually cool here at this time, and Allie feels goosebumps starting to dot the skin around her bare arms. "This helps. With some of the panic and shit, you know?"

She guesses that makes sense, and she's not about to argue with him on what does or doesn't make him feel better. Just takes the joint from between his fingers and holds it up to her lips, takes a drag.

Allie's actually only done this maybe once or twice before, once after Homecoming when she was a sophomore, and once after she broke up with Will. Both times were at house parties, offered to her by dudes on the football team, and both times even she could tell it was shitty, cheap weed scrapped together and oversold to high school kids who didn't know any better.

This stuff, though, likely purchased from an actual dispensary with fancy strains and growing methods and shit, is much, much more potent. In a way that totally knocks her on her ass, because she starts coughing right after the first pull, too ambitious in trying to drag and hold it in. Harry snickers, pats her on the back while her eyes water. She tries to be quiet, not wanting to wake the entire campground with her wheezing. She stops coughing after a while, but Harry accidentally pats a little too close to her fresh tattoo, which makes her hiss at the sensitivity.

"Ah, sorry. Your new ink. Let's see it," Harry says, taking the joint back from her and holding it between his lips.

Allie wipes the corners of her eyes off, fidgets with her legs crossed on top of the metal car hood. "Not right now," she says, keeping her voice quiet. "I'm not exactly wearing a bra."

Harry doesn't say anything, just gives her an intense look. His eyes drop to her chest, but it's dark and she's wearing a pretty baggy t-shirt since it's what she's meant to sleep in, so she doubts he can make anything out, but. He looks anyway, and then trails his eyes back up to her face, brings the joint up to his lips and takes a drag all while doing so.

"Can I try that again?" she asks, thinking maybe the weed will help calm her, or something. She’s hot all over, feels like she might burst into flames at any second.

Harry laughs a little, and then says, "Here, why don't we do this?" And then he takes a drag and brings his free hand around to the back of her head, pulls her in. Slides his hand around to grasp at her chin, uses the tip of his thumb to coax her mouth open, then leans in and presses his mouth against hers in an almost-kiss and breathes into her, pushing the smoke in.

Allie inhales on instinct, but forces herself to do it slowly, trying to concentrate on the heady buzz of the weed getting into her veins rather than on Harry's breath against her, the feeling of his thumb still pressing just slightly against her lower lip. It's bone-meltingly hot, and she has to close her eyes, because the visual of him when he pulls back, looking gorgeously self-satisfied, is simply too much for her to handle.

"I've always wanted to do that with someone” He sounds smug.

“Just someone?”

“You,” he clarifies, smirking. “For a while now. Not just on this trip.”

She considers asking if he remembers that night, his party in the winter. She could tell he wanted her then, too, and now that she thinks about it—anytime Harry’s been around her, he’s looked at her in a way that’s incredibly easy to decipher. Maybe that’s what she likes about all this: with him, it’s uncomplicated.

But she doesn’t want to bring down the mood by reminding him of what she now knows was an incredibly dark period for him. She wants to keep doing this, getting high under the stars with him. And God, are there stars. More than she can fathom to count. But right now she’s more interested in something else. She looks at him coyly and says, “Do it again.”

Allie has a theory he likes being told what to do like this. He’d liked it last night, and he gets a dark look in his eye now when he pulls smoke in from another drag, then breathes it out into her open mouth as they shotgun. He tugs at her earlobe a little this time when he does it, thumb settling on the junction right below, and then half the smoke escapes from the seam of their lips as it turns into more of a kiss than anything else. She lets her teeth scrape just slightly across his bottom lip and he makes this noise, low in the back of his throat, and she thinks of all the ways she could get him to make that noise again.

The joint is still glowing between his fingers, calling for attention, so they pull away eventually.

“That was. Something,” he says, tracing his thumb absentmindedly across his lower lip, like he can still feel her there or something.

“I guess I can see the merits.” She sounds dismissive on purpose, but honestly...she might jump his bones right here and now, on top of Martha in the middle of the night in the wilderness. But instead she snatches the joint out of his hands, feeling confident now that she won't die if she takes an honest hit.

He chuckles as he watches her, and then says, quietly, "I wish I could take a picture of you right now. God."

She looks at him coyly, holding the joint between her thumb and forefinger. "Why don't you?"

A small smile spreads across his face, then he's bringing his phone up and snapping one of her, holding the joint and looking at him instead of at the camera, thinking about...well, all sorts of things involving him. After he takes it, he sleeps his screen and slips the phone back into his pocket.

"I don't get to see?"

"Nope. I don't want you to delete it," Harry replies. "I want to have it."

She huffs amusedly, but doesn't try to argue or steal his phone. They finish the first joint and he pulls out another, because he insists they've only had half each and deserve to have a full one. Allie honestly doesn't know all that much about it, so she's content to watch him as he carefully lights up the second joint and takes a hit.

They lie back against Martha's hood fully, then, with their heads resting on the windshield and their legs crossed at the ankles on top of the chipped silver paint of her hood. The weed’s starting to hit her now, in earnest, everything going fuzzy and pleasant around the edges. She stares at the sky, at the million million stars, fascinated by how small she feels. How weirdly comforting it is to know that she’s tiny.

“Doesn’t that make you feel better?” she asks out loud. Harry gives her a strange look.

“What are you talking about?”

Then she realizes that he hasn’t been listening to her thoughts, in the way she’s sort of started to associate with him. She snickers a bit at having asked the random question aloud, then clarifies, “Just. How insignificant we are. Compared to all this. God, my heart is beating so fast. Is that normal?”

She’s aware she’s talking more than she usually does, rambling, too. But it’s just, the world around them—it’s beyond measure. She’d felt this way a little bit too, in that park after lunch. Looking up at the looming Rockies, all majestic and steely blue, gray, and white. For this whole trip, really, every single day taking in a little bit of a new setting, seeing people carry on with their lives in those settings, so different from hers, so removed from her reality, and yet still going on. And by the end of the trip, they still will have barely covered a fraction of the country.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of that for you,” Harry says, bemused. He reaches over to pluck the joint out of her hands, takes a final hit before flicking it off to the ground. “Trust me, thinking about existentialism when you’re high is not a good time.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks, her voice mellow and low. They’ve been out here a while now. Her hair is drying in the night air, splayed out against Martha’s windshield, but she’s not done. “You wanna show me what _is_ a good time?”

He laughs out loud at that, a genuine laugh that almost echoes in the night. Allie’s pretty sure it’s because he’s high, because she was trying to be serious and sexy, and normally he’s serious and sexy right back at her. She doesn’t get what’s funny, but then she also starts laughing, simply because he is. And that’s nice too, giggling in the dark with him at nothing in particular, and then he reaches over and grazes the side of her thigh with the back of his fingers.

Then he _does_ show her a good time, takes her inside the car, the two of them occupying the entire back row and aisle as he tugs her cotton shorts down, gets his hands all the way up the inside of her baggy t-shirt, gets his face between her legs and his mouth right on her. She has to bite the back of her hand to keep from making sounds that would definitely be both audible and unmistakable from the outside of the car. She feels like her entire body is drifting, everything pleasantly cloudy from the high, her only points of anchor where her skin is burning from his touch.

The time she ought to have been back to the tents with the others is, by now, way past. Still, she returns the favor before she goes, and leaves him with a quiet “sweet dreams” before she slides Martha’s door back open and ventures back out, well past midnight by now.

Becca’s practically dead when she crawls into the tent, the two of them sharing one sleeping bag spread out with an extra blanket on top so that Harry would have one to use in the car. She stirs slightly when Allie crawls under their shared blanket, but doesn’t wake up, so Allie’s going to go ahead and say she’s successfully snuck off for the second time in a row now. She’s getting pretty good at this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it goes!!
> 
> [tumblr](https://new-ham.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/ailiepressman)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of the corner of her eye, she glances over at Harry, who isn't even looking at the sunset the way she is. He’s looking at her instead, with something deep and unreadable on his face that she sees in just the split second she spares him. Suddenly, the air around them grows still, heavy with something serious and something wholly unexpected, something she hasn't prepared herself for. The look on his face is… She lets out a breath, asks him, "Aren't you seeing this?"
> 
> "I'm seeing it," he says, but he’s still just looking at her, and his tone is as serious as the air around them.

She's woken early by Becca unzipping the tent to crawl out, and can also hear Sam and Will chatting quietly outside. She checks her phone, and—shit. It's like six am. She’d forgotten: they're supposed to get up early to go on a hike before they need to leave, see some of the views since they got in too late to do it at night. That's why everyone else had gone to bed so early last night instead of staying up to shoot the shit around the fire.

Allie's groggy from not having had that much sleep, not to mention still fuzzy around the corners from the weed that's likely leftover in her system. But there's no way she can beg off without arousing suspicion, plus she thinks it'd be nice to hike up near the peak and take in some more of the world. Especially after all her postulating on the size of the universe last night—a good opportunity to put things in perspective even further. Besides, the hike they’ve chosen is barely three miles long. They'd talked about it over the fire, specifically picked this trailhead because it's doable in a short amount of time before they need to get on the road again.

So she forces herself to climb out from under the covers, shivering in the chilly morning air, the temperature feeling more like autumn than late summer out here in the mountains. While Becca's out of the tent, she dabs some more Aquaphor onto her tattoo, also checks on it—it's healing nicely, she thinks just from feeling it out, since she can't get a good enough angle to see it without a mirror. It's starting to itch a little, but that's normal. She pulls on a sweatshirt and also gets some clothes out of her bag to wear for the hike then clambers out of the tent.

"Oh good," Becca says. "I was just about to come in and wake you. I didn't even hear you come back last night, I passed out right away."

"It wasn't that much later," Allie lies, without really thinking twice about it. She does play with the tip of her ear though, which is one of her unconscious habits. When she notices, she drops her hand, although she doesn't think Becca or anyone else has caught on. "I'm gonna go wash up and then we can get going."

As she turns to head back up to the restroom facility, she hears Will ask, "Should someone check on Harry? Make sure he wasn't eaten last night?" 

She's glad her back is to them so they can't see the color on her cheeks.

When she gets back to their little staked out area, in a fresh pair of red leggings with white trim and a muscle tee with a sports bra underneath—specifically chosen because it's breathable but still is enough to cover her tattoo—Harry's with the others already, looking just as groggy as Allie had felt when she first woke up. She feels incrementally better now, after brushing her teeth and splashing cold water on her face, though she heats up again when she sees Harry and he catches her eye. He lifts a brow, just barely, and she presses her lips together, suddenly feeling more awake.

Becca hands out Rx Bars for them in lieu of breakfast so they can maximize on time. Allie hates these things. They're basically chewy blocks of leather that taste vaguely of chocolate and nuts, but they are weirdly filling since they're so densely packed, and they definitely provide an energy boost.

She pitches in as they pack their site up and carry everything back over to Martha so they can drive over to the trailhead, and then hit the road right after. Harry keeps his distance; she thinks it's because she has a trend of sort of avoiding him the morning after. He does keep throwing her these glances, though, like he's still got last night on his mind. She does, too, which is why she chooses to focus instead of gathering hers and Becca's bags and collecting the tent poles while the others dissemble the nylon and fold it back up into its fabric storage container.

After they get to the trail, Allie hangs back in their group, too tired to to keep pace with Sam and Will, who are forging ahead, eager to get to the top. Becca keeps jogging to the front of the group to snap photos or record them before falling back in line with her and Harry. Allie smiles and poses obligingly for the camera, trying not to let show how out of breath she is already. God, she needs to start working out again. That definitely fell off the radar after Cassandra's death. It'd be a nice way to take her mind off life for a while every day as well.

"I'm trying to like this hiking thing," Becca says after she puts herself between Allie and Harry, "but I'll be honest...this kind of sucks. Even though the footage is great. But, like, at what cost?" She slaps yet another mosquito that has landed on her arm, and Allie laughs.

"Should have sprayed down like us before we started."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't asked," Becca says tartly. It's true—Allie had automatically passed the canister over to Harry back by the car, because she knew he wanted it. She should have asked the others, but they didn't seem to have any complaints last night.

"Aren't you moving to LA?" Harry asks. "How are you not gonna go hiking?"

"Maybe I'll just be a valley girl," Becca answers. "Although Sam is desperate to get me to see Topanga Canyon. Whatever, as long as he doesn’t make me do the Hollywood sign hike."

"Since when has _Sam_ been the outdoorsy type?" Allie asks curiously. Becca just bats her eyes, not answering the question.

"So what's up with you two?" she asks, changing the subject. "Feel like I've barely seen either of you for the past two days."

"We've literally _only_ been around each other for the entire trip," Allie points out. It's true—all their waking moments have been spent in the vicinity of Becca, Sam, and Will. It's only after hours, when there are no more group activities, that Harry and Allie get up to other things.

"I wonder why it feels different, then," Becca says. Her tone makes it sound like she has a theory. 

This whole time, Allie hasn't been able to tell whether or not Becca's actually serious in insinuating something going on between her and Harry. She always says it in a jokey way and never really pursues it further, which makes Allie think she's just fucking around, but...God, she can't deal with the thought of Becca finding out it's all true. She doesn’t know what she’d do. It fees unreal, the way it is right now, with just her and Harry and their own secret world. If Becca or anyone else knows...it’ll be this whole other thing.

"Maybe it's cause you were the one who got us to split up for lunch yesterday," Harry says. Becca just hums, and then jogs ahead to catch up with Sam and Will so she can take more pictures of the group.

They're nearing the peak now, although it's hard to get any view before they reach a break in the dense copse of trees that are rising all around. Allie thinks she actually might be with Becca—she doesn't know if this activity's exactly for her. Maybe she'd enjoy it more in a place like Los Angeles, with no trees or bugs, dry desert all around and stunning views of the Pacific along every step.

The three others are a good couple yards ahead of them and round a curve, going out of view for a moment. Harry takes the opportunity to sneakily grab the edge of her cut-off sleeve and tug it aside and take a peek at her tattoo.

"Hey!" Allie hisses, but she's smiling.

"Sorry," Harry snickers. "Just had to see. Since you wouldn't let me last night."

"You could have asked nicely."

He wets his lips briefly. "Where's the fun in that?"

She turns her eyes up towards the sky, trying to suppress a smile. "Well anyway," she says, "what'd you think? It's tacky, isn't it? A mistake?" She doesn't actually think so, had quite liked the look of it against her skin in the mirror last night. She's joking, but if Harry says yes, she'll be pissed.

"No," he says, sincerely. "I mean, I didn't get a great look, but." He glances around, making sure the others are still out of view. Allie wonders what exactly he's going to say, if he's making sure they're alone when he says it. He lowers his voice, looks down his eyelashes at her, leans in closer to her ear. "It looks really good, Allie."

The words themselves are completely benign, but the way he'd said them? Definitely not appropriate for others to hear. Allie shoves him away by the shoulder, because she doesn't trust herself right now to react any other way, and he stumbles back a few paces, chuckling.

"Can you be good, ever?"

"Oh, I can be good for you," he says salaciously, and Allie almost shoves him again. But he puts his hands up placatingly, or maybe to ward her off. Allie pretends to be mad, quickening her pace to catch up with the others, who are way ahead of them by now.

"Wait, Allie," he says, jogging to catch up with her. He takes her by the wrist then, gently. "No, I'm serious. I do actually like it, and I know what it means to you. So."

She's not actually upset with him, but it's cute that he thinks she is and is trying to make up for it. She glances around again, and then leans up to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thanks."

Despite all they've done by now, the kiss on the cheek leaves him blushing, and Allie almost wants to snap a photo. One to match the one she has of him when they'd woken him up in the car by blasting music—Harry Bingham at his least suave, his most defenseless. That might be her favorite part of him because it's so rare, but in all honesty, she likes too much of all of him to choose just one aspect.

When the others are in view up ahead, the viewpoint at the end of their trailhead just within sight, the trees opening up to what she's sure is a gorgeous vantage point, Allie moves to increase her pace again to catch up with them. But then Harry touches her wrist again, says, "Wait."

He's looking off to the side at a growth of wildflowers—there have been a lot of them along the trail, bluebells and flax and tiny lavender ones with delicate petals. The ones he’s looking at are particularly big, almost like a cross between sunflowers and daisies, yellow petals that bleed into red at the center. Maybe he's still feeling sentimental or cute or something from the tame peck on the cheek, but he bends down and picks one from its stem, brushes the dust and dirt from it, then goes over to her and carefully tucks it behind her ear, in her hair.

Allie has to bite her lip to keep from smiling comically wide as she blinks up at him. "What's all this?"

"Reminded me of you," he says, looking her up and down. In a sweet way, this time. She feels _pretty_ , when he looks at her like that, which is not something she feels very often even though she's relatively confident in her appearance. "Matches your hair and your pants. Just thought it'd fit."

She could take out her phone and check her front camera, but something stops her from doing so—maybe the thought that she's okay with just existing in this moment as how Harry perceives her, without ruining the illusion or something. Kind of like how she thought he saw her at Becca’s party. She doesn't have to see herself to know.

When they catch up with the others, Becca fawns over the flower, wants to take about a million pictures and also wants one of her own. "We can take matching selfies," she says, linking her arms with Allie's. Allie's perfectly fine with the others operating under the assumption that she picked it and placed it there herself. Harry must be, too, because he doesn't say anything to the contrary and just gives her a small, secret smile behind the camera when Becca makes him take pictures of her and Allie together.

The view from the vantage point is, as she'd suspected it would be, breathtaking. The mountains, steely blue and white against an even bluer sky, stretch on for miles, all the way to the end of the horizon. The very one they're on overlooks a basin with a wide, shimmering lake below, where Becca and Sam had swam the day before, around where their campsite for the night was before they drove further up to reach the trailhead. Everyone goes silent, taking it in, feeling tiny in the presence of it all. Harry's hand brushes just slightly against hers, and she thinks he might be trying to hold it or something, but she doesn't take it. Doesn't dare to—plus, she's busy staring.

"Just wait til we get to the Grand Canyon," Sam says, breaking the silence. Becca nudges him on the shoulder and he pretends to lose his balance and starts to exaggeratedly fall over the ledge, even though it's not a steep drop or anything, more of a hilly slope leading to the next trail pass down.

Allie snorts when she laughs, and then both Becca and Will are looking at her a little more deeply than she'd like, but also with a fondness that makes her surge with love for her friends. "What?" she says self consciously, moving to tuck her hair behind her ear, before she remembers the flower's there.

"Nothing," Will says, shaking his head. "Just nice to hear you laugh."

Becca's the one who pulls them in for a group hug, just the three of them, but Sam joins in after he realizes no one's paying attention to his falling stunt anymore. They've never been all this affectionate with each other in the years they've all been friends, none of them are the type, but it feels fitting right now. Allie leans her head against Becca's and sighs, happy.

It's also Becca who picks her head up and says to Harry, "Get in, loser, we're expressing our affection." He laughs, but he also listens, fitting himself in between Becca and Allie. One of his arms goes around her shoulders and rubs it, just a little, past the spot where her new tattoo is. Perfectly appropriate, but all the same his hand is warm and she's more aware of it than she is of Becca's or Will's.

She's been on a good stretch, she thinks—hasn't been all that withdrawn or quiet, feels more like her old self than she has for months and months. And yet the comfort of having her friends—plus Harry, whatever he is—around her like this? It's not something she knew she needed until right now. 

  


**

  


"One of you two need to drive," Becca claims when they've finished coming back down the trail and are back at Martha. "Harry, you literally haven't driven it at all yet. You've basically been a freeloader this entire time."

He doesn't point out how untrue that is, since he's paying for his accommodations himself, and also paid for Martha's repair, but he does share a glance with Allie. The hike has cleared her head up a lot, but they did both smoke a ton of weed last night, and… She feels okay, but—driving an extremely long distance is probably not the wisest call. This is something neither of them thought through last night, for sure.

"Um," she says, trying to find the words to break it to the group, but she starts snickering halfway through. Even though it's not that funny, but—well, it's a little funny. "That, uh, might not be the best idea."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Will asks, leaning against one of Martha's sliding doors.

Harry looks at her, and she sort of raises his eyebrows, like, _'do you wanna be the one to explain?'_ It was, after all, his doing. He looks sheepish when he reaches into his back pocket, pulls out the plastic bag of pre-rolled joints.

"I'll be good for it tomorrow, I swear," he says while Becca's jaw drops open. She snatches the bag from Harry and then points an accusing finger at him.

"You've been holding out on us! And you," she turns to Allie, "you _knew_ , and didn't share."

"It was after everyone was already asleep," Allie says, knowing that this gives away her lie about coming right back to the tent after showering. Becca doesn’t even seem to notice.

"I knew you two were up to something," she mutters, but she doesn't actually look unhappy. The opposite, really, because Becca's already driven twice now and doesn't have to do it again for the rest of the trip, so she's free to smoke as much as she wants until they reach their destination.

"This is where you went yesterday after lunch, isn't it?" Will says, though he also doesn't look mad. "Shoulda known."

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?" Harry asks. A few days ago, it might have come across as defensive, but everyone can tell he's joking around, and Allie thinks he's actually secretly relieved that no one's mad at him. "There's enough for everybody. It's not just for me."

"No more secret field trips allowed," Becca declares, and Harry scoffs.

"Oh, what about your secret trip, then? Didn't you and Sam go off all alone, how do we know you guys aren't holding something out on us?"

Becca's smile vanishes quickly then, for reasons unknown. She hands the weed back to Harry and says, "Can someone just drive, please?"

The change is sudden, and Allie wants to ask what's up, but Becca doesn't look up to talking about it. And if there's one thing she knows in life now, it's how not to pry into subjects people want to avoid.

Will ends up driving, with Becca in the passenger seat, Allie in the third row, and Harry and Sam in the second. Becca immediately lights up a joint that she passes back and forth with Sam while they're winding their way down the mountain and still have some semblance of coverage, with the trees and narrow roads, before they're out on the open highway again. They keep the windows rolled down, and both Allie and Harry decline when Sam offers them some. She's bone tired from the hike, to be honest, and drops off into sleep before they're even completely out of the national park grounds, despite the chatter in the car as music plays and Harry and Will, of all people, start talking about how God awful the weed Clark used to smoke in high school was.

She wakes up when they're about to cross the border into Utah, which is also where they'll be staying for the night because they want to check out Moab and Arches National Park and the supposedly picturesque canyons there. The most direct route would actually be to head straight across the state, through Fishlake National Forest and then down into Nevada, through Las Vegas before hitting southern California, but they're taking a more winding, scenic route, coming down this way and making a detour to the Grand Canyon tomorrow instead.

Allie has no complaints; she barely had any hand in the planning, and it's what they want to do. She's enjoyed herself so far, has even started to develop somewhat of a tan from being outdoors more than she has all summer. They stop for a gas refill and a quick lunch—this time it actually is McDonald's, because Sam agrees that they want to get to the park before dark to watch the sunset over the mesa—after they cross the state border. Sam has apparently been teaching Harry more ASL, and they're carrying a sort of basic conversation now that Allie sits up to watch. Harry notices she's awake, and signs 'good morning' to her, which she returns. Sam is watching them with a perceptive eye, although he doesn't say anything, just turns to include Allie in their silent conversation.

Their time has been carefully planned out to maximize the amount of daylight hours they can have, because the drive takes just over four and a half hours—relatively short compared to how much time they usually spend in the car—before they're there. The landscape outside has steadily grown from lush and open and green, with great looming mountains in the distance, to dry and arid and mostly flat except for some rising mesas that break up the skyline, everything yellow and orange and dusty. Allie can imagine how hot it must be outside, even though they keep the AC blasting inside Martha. It still smells vaguely like weed, even though they'd kept the windows down until they reached the freeway, but no one minds.

Becca seems to be in a better mood from her sudden snap earlier, because she turns excitedly around in the passenger seat when they pull up at the lodge they're supposed to be staying at. It honestly looks like another motel from the outside, though the sign on the side of the road proclaims it's a desert lodge and ‘adventureland,’ whatever that's supposed to mean. Perhaps they offer guided activities in the park, or something. Allie's just glad they're not sleeping on the ground again, though she's not going to say that out loud.

"I know we're all tired from the hike this morning, but we're doing another one. This one will be better—no bugs, no trees. Just views. 'Kay?" Becca says, unbuckling her seatbelt.

The lobby inside has posters and brochures everywhere for all sorts of activities, and Allie sort of sees what they mean by adventureland, now. There's whitewater rafting, stand up paddle boats, guided walking tours, ATVs, Cessna plane tours, mountain biking—the whole works for all those outdoorsy type things. It's too late for them to go on any, though, which Sam looks kind of let down about.

"We should have budgeted for more than one day here," he laments, flipping through brochure for a cowboy-themed, Canyonlands dinner cruise on the Colorado river.

"We can come back," Becca assures him. "Maybe over break, or something. This is just a taste."

Allie tries to get a sense of their location, leafs through some of the basic brochures and sees they're, right now, in the general Moab area and have to drive to either Arches or Canyonlands to be able to see any of the neat mesas or sandstone arches. Some of the trails marked in the brochure, with the most beautiful views, look exceedingly difficult, up at a higher elevation and going on for five or ten miles. She asks Becca about it, who assures her theirs is not like that.

They go through the usual process, checking in, getting Harry a room, dumping all their stuff before meeting back down at the lobby. Allie thinks about changing her clothes, but figures if they're going to be hiking around anyway, there's no point. She just freshens up in the bathroom, pulls her hair out of her face and into a ponytail. She'd kept the flower from earlier, placed it gently on the seat beside her in the car as they drove, and she still has it now. It's wilted around the edges, but still in relatively good condition despite being plucked from the stem hours ago; she supposes wildflowers are meant to be resilient like that.

"Ugh, I should have kept mine," Becca says as Allie runs a glass of water and places the flower on top, lets it float there, hoping maybe it'll last another couple of hours that way. Becca had indeed picked one of her own, and they have several photos where they're posing goofily with them, taken by Sam and Harry. "I could have pressed it into a book or something, as a little keepsake from this trip, you know?"

"That's a good idea," Allie replies, though she had really been planning to just keep hers for as long as it was still fresh and then toss it when it finally dried up. Maybe she'll do Becca's thing, though. "You could try doing it with some here?"

"I don't think there are any this time of year, but I'll keep an eye out. The flower that blooms in adversity, and all that."  


  


**

  


When they all reconvene later in the front area, which is—like their rooms—covered from floor to ceiling in mid-toned wood panelling and woven mosaic rugs and cowboy-themed hangings, Harry has obviously taken a quick shower. He's in a fresh set of clothes and his hair is damp, pushed back out of his face. It reminds Allie of how he'd looked on that first night. In the pool. She has to blink away to keep focus as Becca fills them all in on their game plan for the rest of the day. The trail is actually only a mile long loop around the Window and Turret Arches, and they can drive up most of the elevation and then stay up on the trail until sunset, hang out a bit, and then complete the loop and drive back down. Then it's dinner at the lodge, and another family fire time by the pits the place has set up in the expansive back desert area.

"I told you campfires were going to be a theme," Becca says sagely.

It all sounds kind of great, Allie thinks, not at all as intensive as she'd originally thought it might be. She gets her things ready, fills up her water bottle, makes sure her phone's all charged while everyone else does the same and they trail back out to Martha.

"What do you think of all this?" Harry asks her, holding the door of the lobby open for her. Outside, despite the time, is all dry heat, the pavement nearly sizzling. Nothing like the coolness of inland Colorado, up in the mountains there, and not for the first time, she wishes she could just wear a normal tank top. Or better yet, take off her shirt entirely and just go with her leggings and sports bra, which is longline enough to count as some sort of crop top. But she still has the tattoo, which she'd also been careful to wash off and re-apply Aquaphor to back in the room.

"It sounds fun," she says honestly, because it does. And not that Harry’s been acting above what they've elected to do on the trip or anything, but she normally wouldn't have thought this sort of thing would be in his wheelhouse. Galavanting around the country with these kids the grade below him, sleeping in dinky motels and tacky cowboy-themed lodges, sneaking weed and going hiking. Maybe this is a first for him, too—maybe he's discovering, just as she is, that he likes it.

"Yeah," he agrees, his hands in his pockets. "I could do without all the weird cowboy shit, though."

"This town ain't big enough for the two of us," she says, putting on an affected accent. "Pardner."

He laughs, and then shakes his head. "I am not gonna stoop to that."

"Killjoy."

"We'll see about that."

She purses her lips, because—well, he's just _assuming_ that she's going to sleep with him again tonight. Not that he's wrong, but still. Whatever. He's being bold, and she thinks he's caught on to the fact that she likes it when he's like this. She likes feeling wanted. And he has no compunctions about making it known that he wants her.

The drive over to Arches takes a fair bit, and then once they get inside the park, they have to take another winding road following posted signs that lead them to the trailhead they're after. At this time of day, there aren't that many other people when they leave the car. It’s a relatively flat, easy journey leading into the trailhead. That, coupled with the fact that August is already a lower traffic season on account of the nigh unbearable temperatures during the day, means that they're one of the only groups out here, other than a few stragglers who are finishing up or paying them no mind.

Becca goes a little crazy with the camcorder, and Allie sends more photos that they take to her parents, who comment that maybe they should take a family trip out there, or something, because of how great Allie's making it seem. This makes her unexpectedly happy, maybe because...she doesn't know, she sort of didn't think her parents qualified them as a _family_ anymore, with just her. Not a whole one, anyway. It's just validating, is all.

The trail itself isn't difficult; it's barely a hike and more of a flat walk around the sandstone arches. The first one they see looks like an eye cut out of a rectangular mesa, and they all pose for pictures inside of it. There's one where Allie's got her arms wrapped around both Will and Harry on either side of her, and she's almost afraid to look at it for how absurd it must be. Six months ago, she couldn't imagine ever, ever being in a position to take a photo like it. Where she’s genuinely smiling and having a blast, with Harry Bingham somehow in the picture.

The second sandstone arch they see is thinner, more narrow. Taller, too, rising up out of the rocky outcropping and providing tons of shadowy spots that offer some relief from the heat that, even as the sun goes down, is still all around. It's here that they decide to wait and watch the sunset before completing the remaining half a mile back to the start of the loop. No one else is around, which Sam regards as some kind of miracle, because usually the arches are teeming with people, and this is a popular one due to its level of ease.

"Everyone drink water," Becca commands when they settle in to wait. It shouldn't be long now; the sun, round and still slightly blinding in the cloudless sky, is beginning to make its descent. Golden hour is supposed to be brilliant out here, the sky turning purple and the rest of the world glowing orange and red from the sandstone. But night falls fast in the desert, and it only lasts as long as it lasts.

Allie takes a swig from her reusable metal bottle and lets her hair down from its ponytail. Harry's watching her again, as she fixes her curls on top of her head so they sit the way she likes. She wants to tell him to not be so obvious, but clearly she can't just say that out loud, so instead she goes over and sits down next to Sam, who has his legs dangling off a rock shelf in the middle of the archway.

"Hi," she says, leaning her shoulder against him. "Enjoying yourself?"

He looks over at her and smiles, signs, "I should be asking you that."

"What does that mean?"

His eyes are soft, and Allie's struck all at once with how much she's going to miss her cousin once he's gone, all the way on the other side of the country from her. It's been amazing growing up with him, like having a friend to whom she also got to say she was related. "We all really wanted you to have a good time, Allie," he signs. "You've been so down."

Her heart aches a little at that, because—this is _their_ trip. She's tagging along more than anything else, even invited an interloper into their midst. And sure, it's all worked out, but. This is meant to be Sam and Becca's thing. She doesn't want to make it about herself. "I am," she assures him. "I really am. And it's all thanks to you guys, because I had basically no hand in planning any of this. I mean...look at this." She gestures out to the scene before them, the expanse of red sandstone dotted with dusty green desert bushes. The sun's just starting to set in earnest now, and she can already tell it's going to be fucking stunning. She wishes, suddenly, that Cassandra could be able to see it.

"I miss her too," Sam signs, as if he can read her thoughts. "She would have liked this type of stuff."

Allie thinks that's true. Cassandra liked calm, liked peace and liked for things to be orderly—and all of that and more is encapsulated by the natural world. She doesn't reply to Sam, just puts her arms around him and rests her head against his shoulder. They act like friends most of the time; it's easy to forget that he's her family, too.

They stand as sunset descends upon them so they can all line up and be speechless for a bit, kind of like how they'd been this morning back in Colorado, looking out at the mountain range. This is ten times that, because the colors alone are enough to make Allie's head spin. The sky by the horizon is both blue and yellow and orange all at once, fading up into deep purple, and below that, where the sun is against the end of the desert line, everything is brilliant and red, thrown into sharp relief against the many shadows created by the sandstones and the magnificent arch. Allie stares and stares and feels small in the beauty of it all.

"I take it back," Will murmurs, because earlier he'd been lowkey complaining about all the hiking and outdoors stuff they're doing instead of exploring cities. "This is worth it."

"Told you," Becca says smugly. The three of them go off down onto a lower ledge to take pictures, and Becca has her camcorder out too, though Allie's not sure how this could accurately be captured on film. Her eyes are still locked on the horizon, on the liquid red sun dipping lower and lower, the colors growing stronger and deeper with every passing second.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glances over at Harry, who isn't even looking at the sunset the way she is. He’s looking at her instead, with something deep and unreadable on his face that she sees in just the split second she spares him. Suddenly, the air around them grows still, heavy with something serious and something wholly unexpected, something she hasn't prepared herself for. The look on his face is… She lets out a breath, asks him, "Aren't you seeing this?"

"I'm seeing it," he says, but he’s still just looking at her, and his tone is as serious as the air around them. 

Something inside her threatens to knock loose, something she thought she'd compartmentalized away inside a box ages ago. Something that, without warning, fills her with an inexplicable anxiety. 

The back of his hand brushes against hers again, like he wants to hold hands, the way she'd suspected he wanted to this morning, too, on the vantage point in Colorado. She thinks, this time, that he's actually going to take it, and his eyes still haven't left her face, and his hand brushes hers again. She curls hers into a loose fist before he can do so, brings it up to fidget at the tip of her ear.

"I'm gonna try to get some pictures with the others," she tells him, trying to keep her voice measured to not betray the sudden jitters she has. She's never been nervous around him, per se, but she can't qualify this as nerves, exactly. She doesn't know. All she knows is that she suddenly wants that sheet again, the one she hasn't needed in the past few days. She’s kind of annoyed, actually. At him, for ruining the moment for her; at herself, for being so affected by basically nothing at all. For _letting_ herself get annoyed and anxious.

"Okay." He puts his hand in his pocket, and she thinks he must aware that she's uncomfortable with holding his fucking hand for whatever reason. He's way too damn perceptive to not have noticed. She's usually not shy at all about any kind of reciprocation.

Allie steps down to join the others on the lower shelf of rocks, snaps several photos of the horizon and the colors and the expanse of sandstone stretching out for miles before them, half mindlessly clicking, half desperately trying to get that sense of pure wonder back as she keeps her eyes on the horizon line.  


  


**

  


By the time they're in the car driving back to the lodge, Allie feels more settled. She's behind the wheel, because both Becca and Sam can't on account of the weed from earlier, Will drove them to get here, and Harry—well, she supposes Harry's going to drive tomorrow morning. He's sitting next to her in the passenger seat while Becca reviews her footage in the third row and Will and Sam complain about being fucking starving.

Allie's starving, too, and she keeps telling herself that the weird feeling in her stomach is because of that and has nothing to do with the way Harry keeps cutting his eyes to her, like he's unsure, or something. She doesn't have a good explanation for her behavior, can't even begin to understand it herself. 

Standing out there, looking at the brilliant sunset with him...it just felt. _Romantic._ The word feels strange even within the privacy of her own mind, because she'd classify their relationship as anything but. It's been purely focused on this one thing, thus far, and...she kind of likes it that way. It's simple. Straightforward. Just like everything else about Harry. She doesn't need him, on top of everything else in her life, to become complicated, too.

But he eventually cuts it out and looks ahead at the road as night falls around them, and by the time they're parking back at the lodge, Allie feels ready to return to normal. She'll go and see him tonight, as she'd planned, and then they can just carry on. They have one more night after this before Los Angeles, which is crazy to think about, so better to maximize while they can.

The restaurant at the lodge is simple, but since the hour is getting late, they're about the only ones in there and the kitchen probably would have closed if it weren't for them. They all feel properly guilty about it, as all people their generation would, and Becca tells the staff they'll be as quick as possible and that they're so sorry to come in at this time, which earns them a smile and an assurance from their waiter.

"I'm just making sure none of our food has spit in it," Becca mutters when the waiter leaves, and they all snicker. Even though Allie does feel bad to make the staff stay longer than they might have otherwise, despite the fact that they're still just within the hours of operation posted on the door.

Harry's sitting across from her. By now, she's starting to feel a little bad for giving him the cold shoulder. Out of nowhere, too; there's no way he could have seen it coming. But at the same time, she doesn't want to exactly address the problem with him, because that would presuppose that there _is_ a problem. There isn’t one. She’s just in her head. Overthinking things. It doesn’t have to mean anything if he wants to hold hands with her. They’ve done more than that.

She wants to flip it back a few hours, twenty-four at minimum, to when all they wanted was their hands on each other and it was blissfully uncomplicated. Not that they’ve expressed wanting anything beyond that at this point. And not that it's _complicated_ now, because again, no one has said anything, but Allie has a problem with jumping the gun when it comes to Harry.

God, she’s overthinking again. She’s having sex with the guy, not anything else.

Maybe that's why, as they're all busy eating and talking, she takes out her phone. Her parents have sent a few more messages, and she also has some Instagram notifications from the story of the sunset she'd posted while they were out there, but she ignores all those and elects to text Harry instead, even though he's right there across from her. She keeps a straight face and types out something filthy and hits send just so she can watch his reaction; this is a trend she saw online somewhere, and it seems stupid and fun and that's what she's trying to go for. She figures this’ll be like pressing a ‘reset’ button.

He looks briefly at his phone under the table, and it's out of her view, but she can tell he's gotten the message. He blinks and raises his brow, like he's processing what he's seeing, and she has to hand it to him that he has a better poker face than she might have thought. For all the times he's been completely unsubtle so far, he's the opposite now, remaining cool and collected as he sleeps his screen and slides his phone back into his pocket. Under the table, though, his foot finds hers and nudges against her ankle, so she knows he's not entirely unaffected.

After they leave the restaurant, with a healthy tip attached to their bill, he comes up next to her and asks her, quietly, "What was that stunt?"

Allie bats her lashes at him. "Do you not wanna do that?"

Now that they aren't sitting at a table with the others anymore, the facade drops a bit. He lets out a breath and sounds slightly strained when he says, "That's not what I'm saying." And then, "Come to my room tonight."

"That was always the plan," she informs him sweetly, and then moves ahead to rejoin the others as they trail out to the back fire pits.

They're all out of marshmallows and have forgotten to re-stock and have also run out of the beers they'd originally brought along, so all they can do is sit around the fire and warm their hands. Now that it's proper night, temperatures have quickly dropped enough for goosebumps to break out over Allie's bare arms, and she turns her body in towards the heat to warm back up. The contrast is lovely, the heat of the flame in front of her and the coolness of the air at her back. She'd wager that it's somewhere in the high sixties right now.

"I can't believe it's almost over," Becca's saying as she leans back against the lawn chairs they have positioned around the fire. "One more day after this. And then LA."

"Let's make it count, yeah?" Will says.

"Definitely," Becca replies, leaning up in her chair and bringing one knee up so she can wrap her arms around it. "Even with our unexpected pit stop, the other day, this has been, like. A dream. And," she glances around at everyone in the group, and Allie has a feeling it's suddenly about to get serious. "I think we all needed this. I know I did. It's been...a really rough year."

Sam reaches over and rubs her on the shoulder comfortingly, and Allie sees something there—obviously it's been an exceptionally difficult year for her. For Harry too, she knows, but it seems like Becca has something, too. She doesn't want to ask, because she assumes Becca doesn't want to talk about it, but then Will asks anyway.

"You wanna tell us about it?"

"I just," Becca shakes her head and furrows her brows. "This is—I don't know. It came at such a bad time, and I kept it to myself for so long."

“I think you can tell them now,” Sam assures her, and then she nods. 

She takes a deep breath, and they all wait for her to continue. "I had a pregnancy scare a little while ago. Like—well. More than a scare, really. I was convinced I _was_ pregnant."

That's beyond any realm of what Allie could have expected. She forces her expression to remain neutral, not display some of the shock she’s feeling. "What happened?" she asks gently, only because Becca seems willing to open up about it.

"I mean, I was late and I took a test and—it turned out to be a false positive, which we found out at the doctor's, but like. I told my parents and everything and we started looking into... _options_. Whether or not I wanted to go through with it or get, like, an abortion. Or adoption, or whatever. What it would mean for school, for my life...for everything. It was just. So _much._ All these things that I never, ever had to consider before."

"When was this?" Will asks, and it weirdly makes Allie feel better that he also didn't know. Like, all this happened with Becca while she had no clue? She feels kind of like a shit friend. Obviously Becca hadn't said anything to them, but Allie also had neglected to notice that anything was amiss with her friend. It sounds like it had been a pretty huge deal.

"April," Becca replies, and there's the answer. She feels even more like a shit friend, because she was so absorbed in her grief that she—purposefully, she's aware—closed herself off from her friends and like, what if Becca had really needed her, then? What if the others did, too?

"I can see you already starting to feel guilty about not knowing, so just stop," Becca says firmly, looking over the fire at Allie. "I didn't want to put this on your plate, on top of everything else. It's okay."

It doesn't feel okay, but Allie nods, not wanting to express how she really thinks. "Sam, you helped her?" Sam nods, and she's glad that Becca had at least someone.

"We passed by a fucking protest outside a clinic in Denver," Becca adds angrily. "When Sam and I went to get lunch. We honestly just wanted to gossip on our own for a bit, but then _that_ happened, and it made me so fucking mad. Like—I could have been one of those people walking in. And all those people would have been out there telling me I can't. Telling me I'm evil. You know?"

That explains why Becca's been touchy on the subject of their split-up time, and also why she'd avoided answering where they'd gone, Allie guesses. "That's fucking awful," she says. "Fuck those people."

"Anyway," Becca continues. "That's my thing. Why I wanna get out and sort of never go back. And please, no one tell me they're sorry I went through that or any weird shit. I just want to let it go."

Allie doesn't even want to breach the subject of who the father was. Or would have been, if it had actually been a thing. If Becca doesn't want to share, then she doesn't want to share.

"As good a reason as any," Will says, leaning back. Allie senses he has something more to say, too, because then he adds, quietly, "I'm also not going back." He's keeping his eyes on the fire instead of looking around at everyone, and Allie has a feeling this is something he's been thinking about for a long time. Her breath still catches anyway. "After we get to LA, I mean. I don't think I'm going back. There's...nothing for me in West Ham."

He looks over at Allie briefly, and yeah, Will's her best friend, but she's also not a reason for him to stay in a place that has never offered him a sense of home or belonging. "I'll miss you," she says quietly.

"You can see him when you come to visit us," Sam signs, and then Allie knows that this is something the three of them must have discussed prior, on their own. She knows why she's been left out—because she hadn't made herself available to be included. And she's sad about it, but she also gets it. No one owes her anything, really.

"What are you gonna do?" she asks Will.

He shrugs. "I'll figure it out. I always do."

He's eighteen now and is no longer a ward of the state or whatever, so technically he has to. But he's also smart and resourceful and he'll have Sam and Becca around, so that puts Allie at ease a little. She doesn't try to fight it or try to question him further, which she thinks Will appreciates greatly. "God, why is everyone in my life going where I can't follow?" she jokes, but it falls a little flat. Because it's still just Los Angeles, still just a plane ride away, not like Cassandra.

"We're trying to reinvent ourselves," Sam says, trying to lighten the mood. "What better place than LA?"

"Nothing from old West Sham to tie you down, huh?" Allie remarks. Sam actually fidgets in his seat, looking slightly uncomfortable at her word choice.

"That's the idea," he signs, but then Becca shoots him a look.

"You should tell them," she encourages him quietly. He sighs. "I know you want to. They'll listen."

Allie nods, Will nods, even Harry nods, though he's been quiet this whole time. "Okay," Sam begins, signing along. "I'm sure you can guess why _I'm_ trying to get out and never come back. It's not easy being a gay kid in a place like West Ham. And I was prepared to leave and never talk to anyone again, except for you guys."

"...But then?" Will supplies.

"But then," Sam says, smiling slightly. "Harry, do you remember that party you had over winter break?"

"Uh, yeah," Harry says, glancing over at Allie. She goes still, because...well, she'd been completely convinced until now that he'd forgotten all about that night. Or is he just saying yes to Sam's benefit? "Yeah. What about it?"

Sam presses his lips together. "I sort of—met someone. And we've been talking a lot since then."

"They're not just talking," Becca says, rolling her eyes. "It's way more than that."

"Oh my God," Allie interjects. She did not know this. This is news to her. "Who?"

"It's...Grizz," Sam tells them. Allie feels her eyebrows raise, and she sees Harry do the same. She never would have thought. Although maybe it's shitty of her to have assumed anything in the first place? "I know," Sam says, seeing their expressions. "Unexpected. At first, I was kind of feeling like I was being the stereotypical sounding board for some straight kid figuring out their identity, and that kind of sucked. But it's not like that. It's...I don't know. I think he wants to be serious."

"Wow," Harry says quietly. Allie knows he and Grizz were buddies in high school. This is a lot to wrap their heads around. "Grizz, huh."

"And now you're going to LA," Allie says, realizing where Sam's conflict comes in. "Just when you were ready to leave everything behind and finally start your life."

"Yep," Sam says, holding his hands together. "We're trying to figure it out. He's thinking about transferring, but. We'll see."

"Well how do you feel about him?" Will asks. Sam lets a sweet smile hint at the corners of his lips.

"I really like him," he says, and Allie wishes she could reach over the fire and hug him. "And I want it to work out. But I don't want to sacrifice all the changes I've already committed to making... We have shit to figure out, is the bottom line."

"This trip really is all about running from our problems, huh," Will muses. He's spot on about that, Allie thinks—they all have a lot going on. More than she would have thought. In fact, she's sort of the only one who doesn't. She has nothing going on for her. That’s a problem of a different kind, she supposes.

"What about you?" Becca asks Allie. "You'll be the closest one to home. Think you're gonna go back often from New York?"

Something uncomfortable and anxious, not dissimilar to the feeling she'd had out by the arches when Harry had been looking at her like that, unfurls in her stomach. She hates talking about this, she really does. School. The future. Her _plans_. She has none.

"I mean, I guess," she says, shrugging. "I think my parents would break if I didn't. Especially after Cassandra." The mood around the fire grows even more sober than it'd already been, which is kind of what she was after. She really does not want to talk about school or herself or anything else. And she gets that this has turned into, like, a giant heart to heart between them all, or whatever, but she wants to skip over her turn. Everyone knows her damage already, or has seen it first hand. No need to go over it again.

"What about you?" she asks, turning to Harry in hopes of changing the subject. "What are you running from?"

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that," Becca adds. "You showed up so randomly that day, said you needed to get out of town. How come?" Allie can tell Becca’s only asking now because the mood feels right, conducive to spilling secrets and personal details.

Harry sighs deeply and looks around. Allie knows he doesn't necessarily owe them an explanation, but everyone's revealing lots tonight, so. It's sort of his turn. "It's kind of fucked up," he warns, and Will barks a laugh.

"Hello? Have you heard anything we've been talking about all night?"

"Everyone has their things," Allie says, which is what he'd said to her back in Chicago. It's true, and he blinks at her, his face reflected in the firelight.

Then he tells the group the story about his mom, the affair, being messed up from his dad's death, his theory about his sister. It's fucked up all on its own, but he leaves out some of the details about his more personal inner struggles that he'd let Allie in on earlier in the trip, in Iowa. She doesn't know whether that means he trusts her more, or something, or if he's just uncomfortable talking about it to the rest of the group. But she doesn't act like she's heard all this before and nods along when she's supposed to, understanding and somber.

"Damn," Becca says afterwards, leaning back so her shoulders are against the chair. "I can see why you were desperate to get out."

"Yeah, that's seriously fucked up," Will agrees.

"Yep," Harry says, popping the 'p' at the end.

Sam asks, "Have you tried talking to your mom since you left? Called or anything?" Harry shakes his head.

“Frankly, I don’t think she even knows where I am.”

Sam sighs and says, "Well, great. Look at all of us. What the fuck are we all supposed to do when this trip is over?"

That's a question Allie's been trying very hard to dodge this entire time, shying away whenever it comes up. She's successfully managed to avoid talking about herself tonight, and she wants to avoid this, too. "This is kind of cliche, isn't it?" she says, hoping to lighten the mood. "Five broken teenagers sitting around a fire, spilling their guts out."

"Of course it is," Becca replies. "That's kind of the whole point of this road trip. Self discovery, running away from problems, all that shit. If you think it's anything else, then you haven't been paying attention."  


  


**

  


When they were checking in, Harry had gotten an extra copy of his room key that he'd slipped to Allie before they headed out on the trail loop.

This is the key she uses now to let herself in, with the excuse of wanting to go back to the room to shower since she's gross from the day's activities while the others continue to shoot the shit by the fire. That was her exact excuse last night, too, but whatever. No one calls her on it. She'd stopped off in her and Becca's room first to scribble out a quick note about taking a walk or something in case Becca gets back to the room and she's still not there. Becca was making noise about breaking out another joint again when she'd left, so she has a feeling they might be a while.

She uses the shower in Harry's room; it's still damp from when he'd run it earlier, open bottles of the tiny hotel soaps sitting on the ledge, plus a bottle of his cologne and aftershave on the sink. Allie presses her lips together, amused, because hadn't he had to pack for this trip in a rush? And yet he still managed to remember to bring those necessities. Typical. She makes sure to towel dry her hair thoroughly when she's done so she doesn't drip too badly all over his pillow, but also if she does? He'll deal with it. Somehow she doesn't think he'll mind all that much.

Her underwear today was red to match with her leggings, and also a little bit for him, but he never got a chance to see them. She’s not about to be gross and put the same pair on, so she pulls on a plain black pair, makes sure to re-apply Aquaphor to her tattoo, and then lies on her stomach in his bed to wait for him in just her cami, which is also black. He'd texted while she was in the shower to let her know he wouldn't be long, and this is like, full-blown sneaking around at this point. Isn't this exactly what she said she wouldn't do, a few days ago?

She's scrolling through Instagram, trying to wrap her head around updates from people's lives—Helena's on a trip to London before school, Bean is finishing up a research internship, and God, she didn't even know about any of these things—when Harry lets himself in, gives a small laugh at the sight of her on his bed. She doesn't look up from her phone until he's padding over, brushing her damp hair back away from her neck and shoulder, running his fingers delicately over her tattoo, which has now evened out across the surface of her skin. The move makes something almost nostalgic stir in her that she can't quite place, but it doesn't fit the mood, so she pushes it away.

"I said it before, but it's nice," he murmurs, tracing the star with his pointer finger. "Why haven't you told the others about it?"

Allie flips onto her side, her tank top riding up a few inches to expose her midriff. Harry's eyes drop there immediately. "You saw tonight how they are. Shit gets heavy real fast."

Harry's still got his fingers on her shoulder, but he now trails them down its curve, onto her upper arm. He smells amazing, like smoke and wood. "Is that always bad? They're your friends."

Allie shrugs the shoulder he's touching, and his hand falls away. "It's just easier this way."

He seems to sense that she doesn't really want to talk about it, because he bends over then, leans with one hand against the bed and tilts her chin up, starts trailing his lips under her jaw. "Let's do what you said earlier," he says into her ear, his breath hot like smoke, and she shudders. Yeah, she wants to do that.

As far as distractions go, it's a pretty great one. She's cradled against his side after, considering why she feels the need to be distracted in the first place. Tonight was weird—everyone's fireside confessions, the heart to heart that had somehow expanded to include Harry. He's their friend—all of theirs—she realizes, which is incredible to think about. And there's something she's curious about, too, but she's not sure how to bring it up.

"You know how Sam asked you about that party you had over winter break?" she ventures. He's tracing delicately over her tattoo again, which he's been exceedingly careful around when touching her. He stops tracing when she mentions the party, though, positions in bed so he's looking at the ceiling instead of over at her.

"Yeah?"

"What do you remember about that night?"

He brings his arms up around the back of his head, twists his lips to the corner of his mouth. "What do _you_ remember?" he says back, evenly.

She raises her brows. "I asked first."

He sighs. "Not that much, honestly," he admits. "I know I had one, but the details are… I was pretty fucked up, then."

She nods. She'd expected this. But she still wants to know. "So you're saying you—don't remember—"

"Why don't you just tell me what it is you're trying to say happened?" Harry interrupts, firmly but not unkindly. He's right, she's tiptoeing around it. But what good way is there to bring it up?

"I was there. We talked by your pool, and then we went upstairs. To your room."

Harry shakes his head, his brow furrowed. "I do remember that, kind of. I thought it was you." He sits up a little in bed, looks down at her. "I also thought it was a dream."

Allie tilts her head, confused. “Why's that?"

"I don't have a great grasp on what went down, but, like. Allie Pressman in my room, telling me it was going to be okay? I was sure my mind drummed that up all on its own."

So he remembers that much, “Oh, because I was _so_ on your mind, then," she says amusedly, sitting up also, with the sheets around her. "Anyway, that did happen."

"And then," he says slowly, like he's trying to reach the memory. It must not all be there; if it isn't, she'll spare him the details. "I don't think we had sex, right? Feel like I definitely would have remembered that."

Allie shakes her head. "We didn't." Harry accepts, and she wants to leave it at that.

"I can't believe that was real."

She considers this, then says, "Why would you have dreamed about me? Why not someone else?"

Harry glances over at her, licks his lips like he's trying to find the words. "I don't know. I thought about you sometimes. That shit we used to do in high school." The flirting. Allie used to think about it, too. A lot, actually. "It just felt right, somehow. And now...all this." He brings a hand up over to her, slides it against her jaw, but doesn't tilt her head towards him in the way she's come to expect. Just leaves it there, lets his thumb brush back and forth gently along the skin right next to her eye. "Maybe it was a sign that this was destined, or something."

He only sounds like he's half joking. The other half of him is looking down at her, with something in his eyes that definitely isn't the heat or want she's used to seeing. It's something different, something more tender. Something scarier.

The anxiety's back, and she fights hard to keep from showing it, even though it feels like her insides are seizing up. She bites her lip, and he seems to mistake it for want, or something, because he lowers his lashes and whispers, "Will you stay?"

He wants her to stay the night. The whole night, here with him. Allie's hand curls into a fist against the sheets. Then to answer him, she slides out of bed and begins dressing. She brought along a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt to wear back out into the hallway, and she directly pulls those on instead of going through the process with her cami and panties, lying on the carpet somewhere from when Harry'd taken them off for her.

Harry sits up further, adjusts the sheets around his hips. Nods and says, somewhat tersely, "The others. I got it."

"Harry," Allie sighs. Why is this all of a sudden an issue? "They can't know. It's just—it's easier this way."

She doesn't mean to make it sound like their earlier conversation. Harry doesn't need to ask out loud if it would be so bad if the others knew, but she can tell he's thinking it. He's watching her silently, something inscrutable on his face. Something she tells herself can't be disappointment, because—what has she done? They never set any expectations on this thing.

Tomorrow's the last time they can really do this, anyway. Maybe once more in LA for good measure, but then after that the trip's over and Allie's flying home and—well, she doesn't know what Harry's doing, but. The point is, the trip will be over. She tries not to let it weigh too heavily on her mind when she leaves his room, closing the door quietly behind her.

She's feeling kind of raw and out-of-depth when she lets herself back into her own room. Becca, predictably, is already in bed, but she wakes when the door opens and a stream of light from the hallway filters in. Allie freezes, even though she'd left the note as a contingency.

"I know you were with Harry," Becca murmurs sleepily. "Allie, it's not a big deal. We'll talk about it later." And then she turns in bed and goes back to sleep.

Well, fuck. Allie doesn't respond, doesn't know how to, but Becca's already asleep again anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

She goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth again before bed, also to splash cold water on her face and maybe ground herself back to reality, get rid of some of this confused tension making her stomach sick. 

Then she sees that the wildflower she'd placed in the glass earlier has sunken all the way to the bottom, petals having taken on too much water. It's shriveled and saturated and tiny at the base of the cup, and Allie dumps the water out into the sink before tossing the ruined flower into the trash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh what a world - kacey musgraves.mp3 😢


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allie wonders if she’ll ever see him like this again. The context in which they’ve gotten to know each other is so strange. Both free and bound at the same time, to different things. To the past. To the future. The part of her that longs for this trip to last forever aches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy and sad - kacey musgraves.mp3

It’s still relatively early when they trail into a Waffle House a couple miles away to grab breakfast before hitting the road for real. Sam and Will had complained enough about the lack of food yesterday to get Becca to relent to having an actual meal, provided they budget time for it.

Allie had dressed and gotten ready at a breakneck speed so that she could be out in the lobby before Becca finished. She’s aware it’s because she’s trying to avoid talking about the Harry issue; at this point, it feels like she can’t outright deny it once it’s brought up. But Becca had called her out so casually and off-handedly, literally half-asleep. Maybe she doesn’t even remember? No—Allie discards that thought as soon as she has it. Becca’s mind is like a steel trap.

Harry’d spared her only a brief glance in the morning before they’d left; he was the last one in the lobby, and Allie had tried to catch his eye when they all loaded in the car, but he either didn’t notice or was too busy pulling up directions on Google Maps. She tries again while sitting across from him at the sticky table that obviously hasn’t been thoroughly wiped down, but he’s absorbed in the menu, and then his phone again. She can’t tell if he’s genuinely distracted or is acting this way because of her.

She feels distantly bad about last night, but is of the mindset that they’d still had a good time. And she wants to set things right, go back to their normal state. Maybe a more subdued version, sure, to not be entirely obvious now that at least Becca knows. But she’s sort of missed the trail of his eyes over her, his little comments, the two of them sitting next to each other whenever the opportunity would arise. The way she could so easily read exactly what he was thinking--because mostly he’s been thinking about her, for the length of this trip. Or so she likes to think.

That’s not so this morning. He’s stoic and quiet, which is unlike him, and she wonders if… But he’d seemed like he understood, when she left. And it’s not like he could have _known_ she had a mini anxiety session about him asking her to stay last night. She did that all by herself.

She nudges her foot against his under the table, remembers their knees pressing together in that shitty diner in Pennsylvania, remembers his foot against hers at dinner last night. He looks up at her briefly and offers her a thin smile, but doesn’t say anything.

He’s quiet all throughout breakfast, too, as Sam pesters Becca to let them see some of the videos she’s taken of the trip so far. Becca’s being all secretive about it, says the raw footage isn’t up to viewing standards, they’ll get to see it when she cuts it together into this whole thing.

“Harry, how’s Martha handling?” Becca asks then, trying to get off the subject. Harry’s pushing strawberries around in maple syrup on his plate, lost in thought, but he looks up when Becca addresses him. “I know you’ve probably never driven anything like her before. You and your rich boy cars.”

Now that someone’s talking to him, he livens up slightly, smirks, and says, “Well, she’s never had a driver like me before. I’m a pretty good handler.”

Allie pokes her tongue against her cheek and resists rolling her eyes, but she’s glad to see some of his usual self back in play. Becca groans like she’s been shot and Will makes a face, but they’re all laughing about it and--maybe she’s overthinking this. They’re all fine. She’s the one who’s reading into it for no reason.

Harry seems like he tries to get back into it then, puts his phone in his pocket, taps the toe of his foot against her ankle. She smiles down at her plate, and she can tell he knows it’s for him.

  


**

  


Three hours into their drive down to Arizona, they pull over at a rest station for gas and ice cream, because Sam spots Dairy Queen listed on the highway sign and annoys Becca into it. 

Harry’s drives fast, and it’s abundantly clear that he’s confident behind the wheel, even for such a large car laden with cargo. Becca’s on board, anything to get them where they’re going at a better pace. She’s sitting shotgun next to him while Allie sits in the second row directly behind the driver’s seat, so she can’t get an angle to look at his face or see his eyes in the rearview mirror. Which is maybe for the best, all things considered. She’s still conflicted about practically everything when she looks at him.

At the rest station, she and Becca use the ladies’ room. They still haven’t reached the “we’ll talk about it later” stage, and Allie has no idea when that’s coming. She also has no idea what to tell Becca. Some version of the truth, obviously, which is that she and Harry have been sort of sleeping together the past few days, and at the very least fucking around for the entire duration of the trip. 

That somehow doesn’t feel like the entire story, even though that’s all it is on paper. And Becca’s perceptive, she’ll definitely want to dig deeper. Allie doesn’t have answers to give her.

“I hope it isn’t too crowded when we get there,” is what Becca says instead when they’re washing their hands. Allie grabs at the easy topic, relieved.

“Yeah. I think it won’t be too bad since we’re getting there later in the day.”

Instead of getting Blizzards with the others, Allie elects to go with Harry across the parking lot to the store attached to the gas station, where drinks and snacks are cheaper, half because she wants to get out of Becca’s reach, and half because she wants to check on Harry. She’s allowed to do that, right?

They fall into step beside one another when they’re out of the rest station building. Allie squints in the light; it’s baking out here, in the middle of the highway just on the border of eastern Utah and Arizona. She wishes she had her sunglasses, but Harry’s squinting too, which is kind of a cute look on him.

“This is nice,” he says, flicking the hem of her fluttery white cap-sleeved top that she has paired with army green shorts. She almost opted for leggings again to be as comfortable as possible, but it’s simply too hot for anything that goes past her knees. And she can’t help but feel a little pleased that he’s finally paid her a compliment, not that she’s genuinely looking to be flattered, but—it’s like his _thing._ “How’s that sucker doing?”

“Good,” she answers when she realizes he’s talking about the tattoo. “Finally stopped itching. I think the gross scabby phase is finally over.”

They step into the small gas station store; the AC is on so strongly in here that a gust of freezing air blows her hair back from her face when they open the door, the bell jingling. “I’ll get drinks if you get snacks,” she tells Harry.

“Deal.”

They split up; Allie heads to the refrigerated section with all the drinks, where it’s cold enough to make goosebumps break out over her arms and legs. She grabs a bunch of water and Gatorades and a couple six packs of soda, dumps everything into a hand basket that’s heavy enough for her to need two arms to lug around. 

They meet again in the middle of the store, and Harry snickers at her holding the handle of the shopping basket in between her legs like it’s a bowling ball. Wordlessly, he reaches out and takes it from her, trades her his considerably lighter basket full of the usual snacks they’ve been getting. A good mix of healthy shit like energy bars and nuts with bad-but-good shit like chips and candy. There’s also, she notices, a bag of peppermints in there, the red-and-white swirly kind, like the one she’d given him after that fight with the homophobe at the gas station.

“Good haul,” she comments, and they go to check out. Harry pays and she lets him, because it’s only maybe thirty bucks worth of stuff, and he doesn’t make a big deal about it. As they step back out into the parking lot, the sun beating down from nearly directly overhead, he squints at her again, the plastic bags with their purchases bumping against their legs, and wets his lips, looks like he’s getting ready to say something.

For a whole fraction of a second that somehow expands itself to last several long moments in her brain, Allie goes into a panic, thinking that he’s about to bring up last night. How he’d asked her to stay, and she’d said no. She bites her lip, having no clue whatsoever what to say in response.

He takes a deep breath and she thinks it’s coming, only instead he says, “So I talked to my mom this morning.”

Allie almost drops the plastic bags looped around her fingers. “What?” She glances around, realizes they’re blocking the doorway and moves them off to the side, under the tiny awning that provides negligible shade under the scorching sun. “What happened?”

Harry shrugs, trying to come off as nonchalant, but she can immediately tell he’s been turning this over in his mind for hours now—and this, probably, is what he’d been distracted with this morning. She feels silly and a little stupid for automatically assuming it was about her, because he has _so_ much going on right now, outside of this trip. So does she, really, but it’s like they’re in a sort of bubble, when they’re in Martha or exploring the far-flung reaches of the country. “Well, we didn’t really _talk_ , per se,” he clarifies. “She texted me, like, way early. With the results of a paternity test on my sister—which I had no idea she was even getting done.”

Allie tries to hide her shock, but she doesn’t think she does a very good job. “And?”

“Lucy’s my sister,” he says, and she heaves a breath.

“Well that’s good news, right?” If her arms weren’t laden with these bags, she’d maybe reach out and touch him on the arm, or something. 

“Yeah, I mean. The results wouldn’t have changed how I feel about her either way. She’s my _sister_. The most it does is uncomplicate all the shit with my dad’s will. But it just,” he brings his free hand up to run through his hair, “goes to show that my mom also had no clue until now, right? Who the father was. If it was all a lie, she would have been fine with keeping it forever.”

He sounds bitter. Allie hadn’t considered that, right off the bat. Her heart twinges for him. “You okay?”

He twists his lips to the side, and she gets it. All things considered, it’s a shitty reality to have to deal with. “It makes me real fucking angry, if I’m honest.”

“That’s totally understandable.”

“Like, I don’t know what to _do_ with all this anger I have, sometimes.”

Allie thinks about how he’d suddenly lashed out at that guy for harassing Sam, the way he’d snapped at Will on the first day. He does look a little lost and desperate, even with the sun shining directly overhead and making the flyaways on his messy curls look golden around his otherwise dark head. He’s looking at her all seriously, like...this is important to him and he’s choosing to share it with her and not even thinking twice about doing so.

Suddenly, she’s stuck by how they always seem to go from zero to a hundred on this type of shit, sharing and getting deep with one another. Now that she thinks about it, it’s not the normal order of operations at all. They’ve been like this from the jump, and—well, it just strikes her, for the first time, as abnormal. Like something that people who are also just fucking each other don’t do.

“I think I can help you blow off some steam,” she suggests coyly. This is what she can do—pivot back to what they know. Their default state. (Is this their default state? It must be. If not, she’ll make it so.)

He exhales an amused breath. “What, here?”

She glances around to make sure no one can see them; this side of the lot is mostly empty, all the cars either at the gas pumps or on the parked on the other side, gathered around the rest area. Then she tugs him by the wrist, their plastic convenience store bags rustling against each other, around the side of the tiny storefront, to where there’s a side entrance for employees, weeds growing between the cracks in the concrete.

She gets the bags off her wrist, on top of the pavement, letting them roll slightly from the drinks inside, pushes him back against the rough hewn stone siding, gets her hands curled around his collar and kisses him.

This isn’t their first illicit makeout session, but Allie’s aware that it very well may be their last, so she tries to make it count. Harry’s hands go up around her hips, drawing her closer, and she nips at his lower lip just a little, runs her tongue across the place she scraped, trying to make it hotter, hot enough to match the heat of the blazing Southwest sun.

But then Harry moves his hands upwards, around to her face, her hair threading between his fingers, palms cupped around her cheeks and he turns the kiss softer, slower, injects _something_ into it that gets this nervousness blossoming inside her bones. He draws away and presses their foreheads together, his eyes still closed, and says her name.

“Harry,” she says, trying to chase him back for a kiss—because _this_ is something else.

He holds her in place just a bit, still has his eyes closed when he says, “Thank you—I know you were trying to get me out of my head, but…” He draws back all the way, opens his eyes, leaning back against the shitty stone exterior of the store. “I don’t know what I’d be doing if I didn’t come on this trip. If I didn’t have this. With you.”

He reaches out and takes her hand, just by the tips of her fingers, into his own, runs his thumb across her second knuckles. His voice sounds the same as when he’d asked her to stay, last night, all whispery and affectionate.

But she’d said no, hadn’t she? She’d said no. Doesn’t he get it?

The anxiety is back in full force. She wants to go back to the easy flirting, the easy making out, the easy fucking around. But they were sort of already doing that, in the beginning, while also talking about deep shit. So why does it feel different now?

Maybe because he hadn’t kissed her like _that_ yet. Hadn’t looked at her the way he had last night. Hadn’t said to her words like ‘ _destiny_ ’ and ‘ _If I didn’t have this, with you.’_

Allie doesn’t know the answer, just knows that it does feel different, and that this is—too big. Their bubble is going to burst if this keeps going on, and something in her aches at the way Harry’s looking at her, like she hung the moon or something. She hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t _do_ anything. That’s sort of her whole thing now.

“We should get back before the drinks get warm,” she says to him, stepping away and picking the plastic bags back up.

He’d asked her to stay, and she’d said no, and then he’d referred to what they’re doing as… _’this’_ and Allie genuinely doesn’t know what to think. She feels odd, but it’s true that they’ve spent longer than they should have out here and need to get back to the others now.

Okay.” He sounds subdued, almost, and has a pensive look on his face.

She avoids looking at him any more in the sunlight as they regroup with Sam, Becca, and Will, lounging around Martha’s rear with cups of ice cream in hand. They load up the cooler and start claiming their snacks, and Allie once again sits directly behind Harry’s spot in the driver’s seat. 

It’s good that she can’t get a good angle on his face. She thinks she can’t really handle it—that it might hurt or something, because she’s quickly coming to the realization that she’s probably going to have to be the one to tell him that _’this’_ between them isn’t going to last. Won’t last. Because this is their final for-real day of their trip; they’re going to Los Angeles tomorrow, and then Allie’s flying back early in the morning with the ticket she’d booked on her phone in Ohio. There’d always been a deadline, and now it’s here.

It’s not that Allie doesn’t like Harry or is tired of him or anything—the opposite, really, because there’s some part of her, when she allows herself to feel it, that is desperate to just keep driving and driving with him, on and on and on until there’s no place left to drive. God, if only that could be the case.

But that just simply isn’t life and all good things must come to an end and all that other shit she’s had to learn the hard way. Besides, it’s not like they’re…it’s not like he ever said anything about wanting to _be_ with her. Not that that would be sustainable, either.

  


**

  


Becca does not give Harry the liberty of choosing any music, only letting him go so far as selecting from one of the several premade road trip playlists on her Spotify account. They’ve only just crossed into Arizona, but they still have yet to move east, so that’s mostly the direction they’ll be heading for the remainder of the drive.

Allie’s back to checking the dot representing the car on Google Maps again; she zooms out, floored at the huge, huge, expanse of land separating them from their starting point to where they are now. It’s insane to think about, especially considering she’d wondered, before, how they were ever going to gover that much distance. Now it’s the idea of going _back_ that’s got her head spinning.

The rest of the drive is uneventful. Allie spends a lot of it staring at the back of Harry’s head and neck, at the curls of soft, dark hair draped over the skin that has, like hers, begun to take on a nice tan. Something wide and yawning opens in her at the thought of never being able to feel that patch of skin under her fingers anymore, or thread her hands through those dark curls.

Maybe _never being able to_ isn’t the right wording. Never letting herself—yeah, that seems more accurate. Their lives are messy as all hell and…God, Allie has no clue what she’s doing with her entire _life_ after this trip, much less what to do about Harry.

Eventually, she dozes off after zoning out while staring at Harry’s head, until her eyes glaze and she can’t make out the details of him anymore. He becomes blurry, just a mess of shapes and colors thrown together, barely resembling anyone she knows. Practically a stranger.

She has a weird cramp in her neck when she wakes up that she tries to stretch out, and chugs half a bottle of water from the cooler. On the dropdown TV, she can see the credits to Goblet of Fire playing as they pull into Grand Canyon Village, the little town along the South Rim that exists entirely for tourists coming to see the canyon. It’s pricier to stay here, but worth the cost hike for the cut in travel time, just five or ten minutes away from the trail head, official Visitor Center, and several scenic vista points. The only way to get closer would be to camp, but Becca had been correct in assuming they’d only want to sleep in tents for one night. 

Harry pulls them into the lot of the lodge they’re staying at, and Allie stretches as she steps out of the car, her joints popping and her back feeling sore. 

“Same basic game plan as yesterday, yeah?” Becca tells them as they trail inside. “Check in, sunset on the trail, later dinner. Everyone copy?”

This place is much nicer than the lodge in Utah, rustic and tastefully appointed, all soaring ceilings with exposed rafters and rough stone walls. The entire village is nice like this, kind of like a place out time, though Allie has a feeling it’s more about touristic purposes than having any actual history. 

She spends barely any time at all inside her and Becca’s room, essentially chucking her bags down at the foot of the bed and then darting out while Becca’s using the restroom. She’s absolutely avoiding the Harry conversation and she knows it. With any luck, they won’t have to have it at all, at least not in person. By tomorrow night, they’ll be in LA, and then she has an early morning flight for the next day back to Connecticut.

Becca gives her narrow eyes when she rejoins them in the lobby; Allie’s waiting with Will, checking out some of the brochures that the pushy concierge has foisted onto them, fascinated with the guided walks and horseback trail rides, even though they have no time for that. Allie pretends not to notice, and then Sam comes down, too, and snatches the brochure from her hands so he can read it himself.

Harry’s the last person to rejoin, and when he does, he looks far away again. Pensive and distracted—and not in a good way. There’s something bugging him, Allie can tell, except now she’s paranoid about the whole thing and wants to avoid addressing it altogether. She doesn’t rule out the possibility of Becca having said something to him without her around—because Allie also hasn’t exactly told Harry that they’ve been found out. So her excuse of not wanting the others to know doesn’t even apply anymore.

“Chop chop,” Becca hustles them, smacking Allie on the ass with a rolled up brochure. This seems to lift Harry’s spirits slightly; he presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh when Allie bats Becca’s hands away with an indignant, “Hey!”

“We’re burning daylight! Let’s go,” Becca says, clapping her hands. Sam’s already out the door and halfway over to Martha, eager to get the hell on with it.

Despite her apprehension, Allie feels the need to walk next to Harry and ask him, quietly, “You good?”

“Yeah, perfect,” he answers, and she doesn’t entirely believe him. His face is still all drawn and contemplative and—well, she’s not trying to flatter herself or anything here, but he’s not flirting with her. Which is basically all they ever do when they talk, so yeah, he definitely seems off. She wonders why he’s putting up a facade. Is it because of her? Is it because this is ending and he feels torn up about it, or something? “Just thinking about a lot of shit.”

That certainly doesn’t ease her anxiety, but she nods anyway in what she hopes is an understanding fashion.

  


**

  


Harry drives again to get them to the Visitor Center, which feeds directly from the South Rim Trail and can get them to a great vantage point off a path called the Trail of Time. Even from here, the view is already stunning, especially since it’s later in the afternoon and the sun is going to soon start casting shadows all across the crevices of the giant canyon outcroppings.

The interior of the Visitor Center is blissfully air conditioned, with giant, panoramic windows leading out to a breathtaking picture of the canyon, all of it dusty red and visibly layered from thousands and thousands of years of buildup. There’s a circular balcony that directly hangs over one of the drops that Becca and Sam drag all of them towards. Will has his phone out and is recording a slowly panning shot of the canyon from the balcony, the green Colorado River snaking in a lazy, winding route at its depth.

“This is kind of unbelievable,” Will says when they’re all leaning out against the railing. “I mean, I’ve seen the pictures, but. Those really don’t do this any justice, do they?”

“They really don’t,” Becca sighs wistfully, toying with the camera around her neck. “I guess I’ll just have to take pictures of you people instead when we’re walking.”

“We could honestly just stand here and stare instead of walk,” Sam supplies. “I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Me neither,” Harry says.

He’s got his hands in his pockets next to Allie, is staring out at the expanse before them on the balcony silently. His profile is sharp against the blue sky, the flat sheets of canyon rock stretching behind him for as far as the eye can see. It kind of suits him, in a way that Allie wouldn’t have expected. He’s wearing a pale blue button down with the sleeves rolled up, and the buttons undone enough to expose some of his chest, and it’s been at least a day or so since he’s shaved, she can tell. He has somewhat of a rugged look going for him, which she sort of likes. Plus his hair this entire trip has been perpetually unkept, in the actual sense, rather than the purposefully tousled look that she thinks he actually worked hard to achieve in high school. She sort of likes it this way, too.

Allie wonders if she’ll ever see him like this again. The context in which they’ve gotten to know each other is so strange. Both free and bound at the same time, to different things. To the past. To the future. The part of her that longs for this trip to last forever aches, and she has to blink away from him.

Becca's desperate for them to catch golden hour by the time they reach the vantage point they're aiming to get to, so she only lets them have their moment of awe on the Visitor Center balcony for so long before she's ushering them along. The trail is paved and wide, lined with short pinyon pines and juniper trees that are spaced out enough not to obstruct any of the views into the canyon, where the flat plateaus stretch in an almost tangible implied line all across the length of the horizon. The whole thing here is about geology and impressing just how _old_ the rocks are that make up the canyon, with the oldest base level being hundreds of billions of years old, layered and layered after millennia until the topmost sheet, which only dates about 200 million years.

While the others are busy taking photos, Allie reads a sign that says every step a visitor takes on the trail signifies one million years in terms of how long it's taken for the canyon to build into what it is today, or something. Her mind is exhausted just thinking about the concept of time at such a scale. She's barely made it through the past six months, let alone a single year, forget _millions._

"Fucking astounding to think about, isn't it?" Harry says, coming up next to her and pointing at the sign that shows a picture of a canyon shelf, with dates next to each layer of rock. "The canyon itself didn't even form until like five million years ago. All this was underneath, the entire time."

"I can't even think about that right now," Allie says wryly. "The past seven days alone have felt like years. Can’t conceptualize into the millions right now."

"Yeah," Harry breathes. "Seven days. _Jesus._ " He sounds like he can't quite believe it, either.

It feels all at once like an incredibly long time and not enough time. Sometimes it feels like the days have come and gone in the blink of an eye, and other times it feels like it's been years since they'd left West Ham.

"I don't know why it feels way longer," Harry says when she doesn't speak again. "But it's only been seven days."

"Only seven days," she echoes. "Tomorrow's the last."

"What's the plan for when we get back?"

Allie's mouth goes a little dry. For when _we_ get back, he'd said. She doesn't know why it hasn't crossed her mind until this very moment that the both of them are returning to West Ham. Maybe not on the same exact flight—she has no idea when Harry means to even leave LA—but they have the same destination. Home. Except that's not even where it ends for Allie. She doesn't know if it'll even be able to count as a respite, because she still has to pack all her things and begin thinking about registering for classes and deciding what she wants to take, the catalogue pushed somewhere inside one of her desk drawers.

"I'm only there for a few days, and then I'll be off again," she answers, somewhat reluctantly. "For good this time."

"New York's not so far away," Harry says, waving a hand. "My dad used to make the commute every day."

"Feels like it. Like a whole other world."

"Yeah? Is that good or bad?"

Allie scuffs the toe of her Nikes against some of the clay-colored pebbles underfoot. "I haven't decided yet."

Harry’s face betrays for half a second a sort of curious, almost pained, expression before he schools his features. She almost wants to ask how he’s feeling about the trip ending and what _he's_ planning to do after, but knows that’s going to lead them down a rabbit hole that will end with her telling him that this sleeping together slash sneaking around thing they have only lasts as long as they’re in the road trip bubble. And she doesn’t want to have that conversation here and now, in what’s supposed to be the most majestic place the country has to offer.

They rejoin the others and read through some of the signs posted all around the paved trail that offer an abundance of information about the history of the canyon and its formation in reverse chronological order, like they’re walking backwards through time.

“You two have forced us all into being outdoorsy types, you know that?” Will jokingly complains to Becca and Sam. 

“Tell me it hasn’t been awesome so far,” Sam replies.

“It’s cool, don’t get me wrong,” Will says, “but I’m just glad we’re finally getting to a city tomorrow.”

“You mean you’re not settling down with that farm chick from Iowa?” Harry asks. His joking tone doesn’t quite reach his eyes all the way, though Allie thinks this is something only she’s able to pick up on.

“God,” Will laughs. “No, I didn’t even text her.”

“Heartbreaker,” Allie says, tutting, trying to get back into the lighthearted mood. “I bet she’s devastated.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Al.” He says it like he’s just kidding around, but Allie knows he’s talking about how she’d sprung their breakup on him rather suddenly. Out of nowhere, a little bit, because she’d been having all these doubts that she never exactly voiced out loud until after the fact, and there was a period there when he was genuinely down about it before they got a chance to work it out with actual words. Her bad there, with lack of communication, but they got there eventually, to the point where Will feels comfortable cracking jokes about it now.

They’re at the end of the museum-like portion of the trail now, the remainder of it feeding into the regular Rim Trail, still lined with twisted juniper trees throughout the red boulders, but without the same nice, even paving. Some portions of the path that have inclines or declines are lined with black handrails on either side, same as the sections that go directly to a steep drop into the canyon off the side, without any trees or extra rocks to offer a buffer.

Allie keeps to herself, walks at pace behind Becca, who's leading the charge forward as the trail narrows or widens according to the winding pathway. It's not too difficult or tricky, having been traversed by so many people before them, but it's enough that her silence can be interpreted as concentrating on where she's going. She also has her phone out and is clicking to take photos whenever the view or angle of the sun hits particularly right, which honestly feels like it could be just about any time. The entire place is beautiful in a way that Allie had never considered possible before, since it's all just rock and ravine. So incredibly different from the lush green of Colorado, which itself is already distinct from the manicured green of West Ham in the summer, all maintained lawns and closely cropped shrubs.

Places like these—the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, the sandstone arches—have a wild sort of beauty about them that Allie's come to appreciate. They're not beautiful because someone made them to look that way. They just _are_ , by nature, and thousands flock to see it for themselves.

She's glad Harry's behind her on the trail so she can't look at him and at the same time contemplate the beauty of the natural world. Because he, too, had looked beautiful standing in the sunlight on the Visitor Center balcony, or squinting at her under the awning of the gas station store, or lying next to her on Martha's hood under a sky full of stars. Or any of the other moments she's observed him and shared with him thus far.

When they finally reach the scenic vista point, along an outcropping of canyon shelf that opens up to an incredible unobstructed and panoramic view of the entire canyon—which is more of a system of canyons that continues on far beyond where the eye can see—they all stop, put their things down, and have a break for water.

"I can't believe this is even still the same country," Sam signs, bringing a hand over his eyes to shield from the sunlight as he squints out at the canyon view. They've succeeded in making it here for golden hour, the sun just low enough in the sky to wash everything in an orange glow, made doubly strong by the red hues of the canyon, interspersed with cooler blues of the shadows in the wall formations. "Like, this is the same place where we passed a Wal-Mart with a drive through food court attached."

"You weren't trying to get half as deep about this the last time we were here," Allie says next to him, signing at the same time. Sam chuckles, and Becca perks up to their conversation.

"Yeah, because I could barely speak. But I was thinking it, don't worry," Sam replies.

Then Becca asks, "You've been here before?" She looks between them. "Both of you?"

Allie nods. "Family trip way back when. I basically don't remember any of it, though, too young. Right, Sam?"

"Yeah, definitely needed to come back here after getting older," Sam affirms. "The only thing I remember is my mom having to carry me cause I was so tired."

"And I think I was scared of falling over the ledge," Allie says, trying to recall. They were so young, then.

Becca looks relieved that they aren't doing some kind of repeat activity, though Allie could totally justify coming back here for more than one occasion. Harry and Will have wandered over to the group as well, and they all stand in a loose huddle together next to where the boulders on the ground give way once again into the juniper-lined trail path.

"I have pictures," Allie suddenly remembers, unlocking her phone and opening Facebook. Her grandma has a bunch of albums posted there, from when they'd helped her set up her account and the very first thing she did was have them upload several family photo albums for her, so she could look at them whenever she wanted. Of course, her grandma had forgotten how to log in almost immediately afterwards, but the photos are still there. She locates the album and scrolls through, selecting one where she, Cassandra, and Sam are all cheesing widely at the camera.

They're so young, just toddlers really, but the canyon is still there in the background, looking unchanged from the view they have right now. She holds her phone up horizontally so everyone can see, and Becca grabs at it.

"Oh my _God_ ," she says, zooming in. "You guys are so tiny!"

"That was before the Pressmans moved to West Ham, I think," Sam supplies. "So our families would take these yearly vacations instead."

Harry leans in, peering over Becca's shoulder at the photo. "Look at these stunners. My God, your little hat."

In the photo, Allie's wearing a tiny bucket hat that has a plastic, glittery flower poking out the side. She scrunches her nose looking at it. "I think I still have that, somewhere." 

It's probably stuffed in the back of her closet, where all her shit's gone untouched and unsorted for ages. Will takes the phone from Becca then, zooms out so all three of them are in the frame again, Cassandra's arm protectively around Allie, shielding her from the canyon ledge that's several yards behind them.

"People used to think we were twins back then," Allie comments. She and Cassandra had looked so similar when they were younger, other than their hair. They'd only become more distinct after a few years, growing into their respective features. Cassandra had a face older than her age, Allie thought—not in a bad way, just that she looked wise, all the time. Like she knew what she was doing. Allie was all wide eyes and round cheeks. But when they were little, they were so alike, and all Allie ever wanted was to be like her big sister.

Becca rubs Allie on the arm in what she can tell is trying to be a comforting manner, but it wakes Allie out of her mini-reverie, the nostalgic fondness that had been blooming in her chest being cut through sharply by the sympathy she can suddenly read on Becca and Will's faces.

"Let us know if it's hard for you to be here," Becca says, and Allie knows she's trying to be nice, honestly, she does. But it's the whole Millennium Park bean sculpture situation all over again; this doesn’t need to be a sad thing just because she’s in the same place where she and Cassandra had stood maybe fifteen years ago at this point.

"She's not gonna break, for fuck's sake," Harry mutters, snappishly. He says it half under his breath, half out loud, like he hasn't fully decided if he wants people to actually hear or not. But it comes out of the blue, and people do hear. Becca turns to him, her eyebrows raised.

"What?"

He gives her a hard, considering look for a long moment, then says matter-of-factly, "I haven't hung around you guys for very long, but if this is how you've been reacting to her for the past few months, no fucking wonder she feels like she can't talk about Cassandra to you guys. You make everything into some kind of huge tragedy when it doesn't need to be."

"Harry," Allie says, in a chastising voice. Where is this coming from? He sounds annoyed, and also like he's been thinking this for a while now. And though she doesn't necessarily think he's wrong, she also doesn't appreciate him just...saying it like that, and she doesn’t want to talk about it. Talking about it makes it real—that's always the rule, and she's so used to withdrawing into herself or growing distant whenever it gets brought up like this.

"We're just trying to be respectful," Will says, coming to Becca's defense, who looks speechless at Harry's words.

"Be that as it may," Harry replies, "you're not doing it the right way. You know, Sam's Cassandra's family, too. How come you guys don't act like this to him?"

Sam holds up two hands, shakes his head, as if to say _'leave me out of this,'_ though he does also shoot Allie a somewhat guilty look, as if he'd never considered that avenue, either.

"You weren't there," Will says, his tone accusatory. "You didn't see how she was, after Cassandra died. We're just trying to make sure she's okay."

"Okay, let's stop talking about me like I'm not right fucking here," Allie interrupts, annoyed now. Plus, Harry _does_ know—she'd told him about how she was, directly after Cassandra's death. None of her other friends have brought it up to her in so many words, never outright mentioning it the way Will just did, but it's obviously been a thing that’s gone unsaid for a while now.

"Allie, if we were ever—I didn't mean to make you feel like—" Becca's trying to find the words, but she looks upset. Allie presses her lips together, because this is such a bad time to be bringing all this up, and it’s not like she blames Becca or any of her friends. It’s always been a _her_ problem, in her mind, something she needed to deal with by herself. Becca hands her phone back gingerly, and Allie pockets it.

"It's okay," she tells Becca. And then to Harry, with a baleful look: "I don't need you to fight my battles for me, okay?"

"If I didn't say anything, I doubt you would have," he says waspishly.

She gives him a look that plainly says _'excuse me?'_ and then glances around at the rest of their party. Sam shrugs helplessly; he's probably the person least at fault here, because she knows he'd been torn up at Cassandra's death, just hadn't channeled his grief quite the same way she had. But he also never made her feel like she was reliving that grief or reminded her of it in weird, unintentional ways.

"Okay, come on. We'll be right back," she says to the three of them. Then she takes Harry by the wrist, doesn't turn to catch the look on his face when she starts dragging him along, back onto the path and away from the outcropping of the scenic point. He doesn't resist, though he does tug his wrist out of her grasp halfway through, follows the rest of the way with his hands shoved in his pockets.

"You wanna tell me what this is all about?" she asks when they're around a bend and out of earshot from the others, by a collection of underbrush that leads to a steep slope downwards, out of the confines of the stone-lined trail so they don't obstruct the walkway.

"Why don't you ever speak up around them?" he says by way of response. "Say how you're feeling. How the way they talk about her makes you feel bad, because you feel like you're always meant to be sad about it."

"I _am_ always sad about it." Allie crosses her arms. She’s also annoyed for the first time ever that he… _gets_ her, like this. Has basically pegged her to a T. 

And then it strikes her that that's not entirely true. It is, in a broad sense, of course she’s always going to be sad about Cassandra in general. But just then, when she'd been looking at that photo of them, toddlers standing in what might have been this very spot, she hadn't felt sad. Just fond, really, of that version of those sisters who'd been inseparable. Harry arches a brow, like he can read her thoughts. 

"There's a time and place," she tries instead. "We're literally on a trip. And like I said, I don't need you to voice these things on my behalf, or whatever."

"There's no such thing as a good time. Plus I was sick of seeing how down you get about it. It's visible, you know? Anyone would be able to tell it obviously gets to you."

That's not true either, Allie thinks, because she's gotten incredibly good at masking her feelings to the world. Pulling that sheet up—she goes distant and quiet and doesn't have to really show anything else. She doesn't know if she's just not as good as she thinks, or if Harry's able to see right through that, too.

"Like you're some kind of expert on my mood?" She knows she sounds defensive. She doesn't care. "We've basically known each other for all of seven days, Harry."

He looks at her like that's plainly not true and he's not even going to bother arguing on that point. One, because they did know each other before this. Two, because in these seven days she's shared with him things she'd never told anyone in her life before, and the same likely goes for him. About things she feels like she can't talk to anyone else about, either, and all in all—they actually know each other pretty well by now.

"It's not just this either," he continues, blowing past that. "Anything about the future, you automatically fucking run from. Are we going to talk about the fact that you're obviously not ready to go to college?"

Her jaw drops open. " _Excuse_ me?"

He tilts his head to the side, looks a little bit scathing. "Come on, Allie. Nobody's even allowed to bring up NYU, or else you completely shut down. What the fuck are you gonna do when the semester actually starts?” Her jaw stays open while he talks, offended, unwilling to believe that he’s _actually_ saying all this about her out loud. What the fuck? He gives her another pointed look, then says, “I've been down the path you're heading towards, and let me tell you, it's not a good time."

Allie hates that she _does_ freeze a little at the mention of school, because every waking moment of this trip has been dedicated to her pretending it doesn't exist. But then she bristles at Harry's words, because why is he acting so hostile all of a sudden? She brought him out here genuinely to calm him down a bit, to chat and understand, maybe get an apology out of him to Becca and the others. And now they're fighting. Which they've never really done before, but she's pissed, because why is he actively ruining the whole day out here? This is supposed to be their grand finale, or whatever. Maybe that's why she bites back, "Why do I need to take emotional counseling from the guy I'm fucking, especially when he's just as much of a mess as I am?"

He goes quiet, and his jaw tenses. "The guy you're fucking."

She arches a brow. "That's what you are, aren't you?" 

Harry laughs hollowly, shaking his head back and forth like he can't figure her out. All the fight seems to go out of him then, replaced by quiet resignation, though she can tell he's still irritated. She's also not done, and continues, "And let's not pretend like you're not running away from your future problems just like I am. Just like we all are."

"No, those three are running _towards_ something. We're the ones running away," Harry points out, and it’s _true_ , but Allie still doesn’t want to talk about it. So she deflects, turning the point back towards Harry so she doesn’t have to face the hard truth he’s spoken about herself. 

"My point still stands. All your family shit? You skipped town just to avoid confronting that. Don't pretend like you have some kind of moral high ground on me."

His jaw tenses further, as do his shoulders all of a sudden. He looks down at his feet, and his mouth twitches into an unhappy purse. "Then I guess you'll be glad to know," he says, the words slow and careful, "that my mom finally found out about my little sojourn. She called me while we were in our rooms at the lodge. And I'm flying home from Phoenix tonight."

At this, Allie's anger abruptly melts away into something else. Shock, mostly, as she processes his words, which are staggering. Is this the reason for his irritable mood? Why he's forcing a confrontation? Because it’s now or never?

She still can’t wrap her head around the concept of Harry flying home _tonight_ instead of two days from now, after they reach LA, which has been like some kind of zenith in her mind as their prescribed end point. Not today. They’re supposed to have more time.

All these thoughts jumble together in her mind, but the only thing she manages to say is, "You're... _leaving?_?" Like she can’t quite believe it.

He studies her for a moment, pressing his lips together like he's trying to read her. Golden hour is just about up now, bleeding into genuine sunset, the sun resting huge and ripe directly over the line of the canyon out in the distance. Despite the circumstances, he still looks maddeningly good in the warm light, though it also displays some part of him that she thinks she isn't meant to see. 

The glow hits him in just the right way, revealing something sad in his eye, the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his body, their silhouettes stretching out long past their natural shapes. He looks resigned, almost forlorn. Then a shadow passes over his face as he tilts his head down, looks at his feet and breathes out a single, humorless laugh, shakes his head minutely. He's not looking at her when he says, just as softly as she had, "You really don't know what you want, do you Allie?"

And then he's brushing past her. Not storming off in a huff, but walking at a regular pace, back towards the others. She has no choice but to follow.

  


**

  


Harry does apologize when he rejoins the others, and they accept. Becca insists on giving Allie a hug, which she returns uncomfortably, because she's still stuck on the fact that Harry's leaving _tonight_.

When they're backtracking their steps to reach the parking spot again as dusk falls, Sam falls in line with her, and signs, "I'm sorry, too."

"You didn't do anything."

"I could have said something. Or could have talked to you...I don't know." He looks at her sadly. "But it was hard for me, too."

Allie knows this, so instead of saying anything, she wraps an arm around him and rests a head on his shoulder as they walk. They're the last in the group; Harry's ahead of them, his shoulders tense. She swallows dryly.

Sam notices, and asks, "Did you guys have a fight?"

She nods into his shoulder, and he doesn't press any further, just wraps his arm around her, too.

Harry informs the rest of the group in the car as they're driving that he's leaving tonight.

_"What?"_ Becca asks sharply. The mood had definitely been sober before, somewhat awkward, but all that goes out the window when Becca leans in closer to him in the passenger seat, looking alarmed. "Why tonight?"

"Technically early tomorrow morning, but I'd have to leave tonight to make it. My mom finally tracked me down. I never exactly told her where I was going. I think she thought I was bumming around in West Ham this entire time or something."

"But we're going to LA tomorrow. It's just one or two more days, couldn't you just stay until then?"

"Try telling her that," Harry says. "She already booked the ticket." Becca looks upset, tries to argue for Harry to stay, but he shakes his head every time. Even Will, from the second row, tries coming up with options, but to no avail. "I have no choice,” he says bitterly.

Becca shoots a glance back at Allie, who's sitting in the third row with Sam and hasn't said a word this entire time. There's so much going on in her brain that all she can bring herself to do is stare listlessly out the window, at the purple canyons growing distant, until they pull back into the village. Her silence is definitely an indication that she already knows, and that she and Harry aren't on good terms right now. It's abundantly obvious that they've fought.

Harry doesn't join them for dinner, leaving them tersely with a comment about needing to pack and gather all the things they've littered around Martha. Phone chargers, battery packs, shoes, sweatshirts—her interior looks like some kind of living room at this point. Allie eats half-heartedly, pushes the rest of her food around her plate while everyone else talks about what a huge fucking bummer Harry leaving is.

"At least it won't be too long until you're also back in West Ham, Allie," Becca says, as if it's supposed to be some sort of comforting thought.

"What difference is that supposed to make?" Allie asks. She's not exactly excited to go back and leave all her friends behind in LA.

"You and Harry will both be there, won't you?" Will says.

"I guess? But it's not like I'll see him back there."

Will, Becca, and Sam all give her strange looks. Will looks like he thinks she's being stupid or something, and she fidgets uncomfortably in her seat. What kind of expectations did they have for her? Is it because they feel bad that they're all staying in LA and want her to have a friend in West Ham, or something?

"What?" she asks defensively, after their stares become too much.

"Wow," Sam breathes, shaking his head. "Just wow."

Becca looks like she's holding back from saying something, presses her lips together and breathes out through her nose. "Can you at least talk to him before he goes, Allie? We know something went down back on the trail."

She purses her lips. She's still mad at him, now that the shock of his departure announcement has worn off. But Becca looks so earnest that she feels guilty, because Harry's friends with all of them now, too, and she doesn't want to make the goodbye awkward for everyone else. "I guess."

After dinner, at Becca's insistence, she goes and knocks on Harry's door while everyone else sits around the fireplace that's set up in the lodge lobby—a makeshift version of a final campfire for the trip. She doesn't know when exactly he's planning to leave, but he has his bag packed all neatly on the perfectly made bed when he answers.

"You're really going?" she asks softly when he steps aside and lets her in, his face inscrutable.

"Like I said. I have no choice." He sounds tired and distant.

She turns to face him, considers what to say. "I'm sorry for saying you were running away. And for getting mad at you back on the trail."

Harry shakes his head. "I'm not.” She can feel her eyebrows raising, and he narrows his eyes a little bit. “Because it's all true—everything you said. And everything I said."

She twists her lip to the side, frustrated. Why can't he just take the apology? "Harry, this isn't how I wanted things to end between us."

"Ah," he says, nodding, his jaw set "But it _was_ going to end."

She moves her shoulders a little helplessly, like she doesn’t know what else to do. "I mean...the trip was only ever going to last so long."

"And when exactly were you going to tell me all this?"

Her mouth opens, then closes. She feels her stomach tying itself into knots. "I don't know what you want me to say,” she says, and he looks...not shocked, but still hurt. She adds, sort of quietly, “This was only ever about one thing. Right?"

He breathes out a single, dry laugh. "Is that really what you thought? That this entire time, I only ever wanted to sleep with you?"

She doesn’t necessarily know the answer to that, and says, "Well you never said anything otherwise. Did you think we were gonna go back and...like, _be_ together?"

He looks at her in disbelief, then says, "Yeah. Yes. I did."

She snaps her mouth shut. She really never even considered the possibility. But no, she strikes it off immediately, because...she's leaving for school and he's going to be in West Ham, wasting away or whatever before he finds the next thing to move onto. Returning to Dartmouth or living off his trust fund money or whatever else. Their paths just don't align and—and this trip, with him, has been so _good_ that she knows it's meant to be a temporary thing. Because things like this just don't last. This isn't what real life is actually like.

"It wouldn't work, Harry," she says. "This was always supposed to just be a trip thing. A fling, or whatever."

He flinches, like her words sting. They sting her own mouth, too, when she says them. But she needs for them to be true—she's making them true. "Is that really what you've been thinking? This entire time?"

She nods, ignoring the hollow pit that's forming in her stomach. This conversation was always going to happen one way or another. Why not now? She realizes in this moment that there's no way it could have ended the way she pictured in her head, some kind of mutual understanding before an amicable parting of the ways, this road trip a brief, happy respite in their considerably bleaker realities. But if Harry all along had different expectations than her...and maybe it’s her bad—she should have said something earlier, but she really thought it was implicitly understood that they were on borrowed time.

But then he says, "I don't believe you," and is looking at her like, for the first time, he can't understand what she's thinking. How she's feeling.

"It's the truth," she whispers, the hollow pit widening by the second.

His phone buzzes then, and she sees he has the Uber app open—his ride is here. He's really going. She still can barely believe it.

"Allie..." He sounds conflicted, clenches and unclenches his fingers at his side. Then he goes and retrieves his bag from the bed, moves past her towards the door. "Let me know if you work it out. And then we can talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," she replies automatically, because really, this is all there is. This is how they end and she just has to be okay with it. It's nothing particularly dramatic, but then again nothing in life ever is. Things happen, and you have to deal with them. She's already putting her walls back up and fortifying herself to add this on top of the ever-growing pile of things to kick into the corner of her mind, let gather dust until she doesn't have to _feel_ anymore. Until the hollow pit fills itself in and she can go back to living day in and day out, because the numbness is easier to deal with than anything else.

He shakes his head at her again, and then he's out the door with his bags. She doesn't follow him this time.

  


**

  


Their trip is sandwiched by these long drives—almost nine hours on the first day, almost nine today to get to LA.

Allie’s back to listlessly looking out the window in the car, in the third row. She doesn’t need to be here, technically, since they’re only four people now. But no one says anything when she climbs back there, and she stays quiet when they cross into California, watching as the landscape evens out into long stretches of dry desert. Originally they were going to stop for another day at Mojave or Joshua Tree, but had decided against it after two whole days of desert camping activities. Order of the Phoenix is playing on the tiny TV screen, but Allie zones out, letting herself drift in and out of fitful bouts of sleep.

Last night, she’d come down to the lobby after finally bringing herself to leave Harry’s room, to where everyone was sitting around the fireplace, chatting quietly. Probably talking about her, she’d presumed, but whatever. She’d asked if he was gone, they all said yes, that he’d said a quick goodbye and left and that was that.

No one bothers her in the car, but they don’t tiptoe and keep the mood down either, talking about all that they’re planning to do and see in the city. Allie smiles weakly when Becca says she has to come and visit in the winter, get away from the cold, and then goes back to staring out the window.

They’re stopped at yet another rest station for lunch and gas, this time actually sitting down in the food court to eat, when the tentative peace Allie thinks she’s managed to get away with is finally broken. When they’re done eating, Becca puts her palms flat on the table, and looks Allie dead on.

“Okay, Allie. Enough is enough, now. Tell us what happened.”

She looks around at the three of them, bewildered. “What is this, some kind of intervention?” She’s half joking, but the look on Becca’s face lets her know that’s exactly what this is.

“Are you and Harry, like, broken up or what?”

Allie opens her mouth, then closes it. She knows Becca had been aware of something going on, concretely, but—everyone else? She looks around at them. “So did everyone know, this entire time?”

Sam actually rolls his eyes. “We have eyes, Allie. And the sexual tension between you two was like the sixth person on our trip, until after Nebraska. It was painfully obvious.”

Will nods along, like this is something she should have seen coming. She sucks a breath in through her teeth. Yeah, why not deal with this on top of everything else? Her personal mortification at realizing everyone knew this entire time should be negligible, compared to how all-around shitty she feels about Harry leaving and the way they ended things. “Okay. Well. No, we’re not broken up, because we were never together.”

“That’s the opposite of what we literally just established,” Becca says, raising a brow.

“It was casual,” Allie says, trying to make it look easy. “Just sleeping together. Just for the trip. Nothing more.”

“And Harry thought that, too?” Becca sounds skeptical. Allie doesn’t answer right away. “Oh, Allie,” Becca sighs, looking at her sadly.

“You’re not even gonna try to be with him?” Will asks, and Allie gives him a weird look.

“Why do _you_ of all people want me to be with Harry Bingham so badly?”

“Allie,” Sam signs gently, “we just want to see you happy.”

“Well, what does that have to do with Harry?”

The three of them exchange a look with each other. Becca takes a deep breath, and Allie knows she’s about to go off on some long thing, starts bracing herself. “I know you’re thinking it, and we haven’t, like, talked about this beforehand. But I know I speak for all three of us when I say that…you’re different now, Allie. You’ve changed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Becca gives her a look that is full of emotion. “Since Cassandra died, it’s like you’ve been going through life like you’re…asleep, or something. Obviously we wanted to give you space and time, but it never really ended. It was like we lost part of you with her, too. But how you’ve been, these past few months—it was heartbreaking. For all of us.” She’s looking at Allie with such emotion in her eyes and her next words make those knots reappear in her stomach. She says, “And then Harry came along and, God, it was like you woke up, or something. In just a week, you were so different. Like you could let yourself be happy, free, whatever, when you were with him. I don’t think that could have happened with just us.”

Allie feels something desperate and hot unfurl in her chest, as well as the return of the hollow pit. “Harry Bingham isn’t my salvation,” she says, trying not to sound mean about it, because they’re all looking at her so sadly.

“No,” Becca responds, “but he’s not nothing, either. Everyone heals differently, and he was part of your process. And now you’re letting him go.”

She looks at Sam and Will. “Is this what you two think, as well?”

Will has a gentle expression on his face. “He was good for you, Al.”

There’s something bitter in her mouth when she replies, “You guys are making something out of nothing. It was never like that.”

They all pause, and then Becca says, slowly, “If that’s really what you feel…then okay.”

Allie can tell Becca doesn’t believe it, and neither do Sam and Will. But they don’t pursue the issue any further. Under the table, she curls her hands into fists on top of her thighs. This is one of those times she’d normally press her knee into Harry’s, seeking that moment of mutual understanding that she knew she could always get from him. But he’s gone, and everyone around her has somehow gotten in their heads that she’s destined for him or something.

She also doesn’t want to address the way Becca had said _’and now you’re letting him go,’_ as if the onus is somehow on her to rectify things, when this is what she _wants_. She wants to move and carry on with the way real life is supposed to be, because that’s how things are supposed to happen. Things end, and then you just have to keep on going.

  


**

  


The meager remainder of the trip is a lackluster blur. They get back into the car, drive, reach the hotel they’re staying before Becca and Sam move into their respective dorms tomorrow.

Allie doesn’t cry when she says goodbye to them in the morning before getting into the cab that will take her to the airport. She makes promises to see them soon, maybe over Thanksgiving or winter break, thinks the entire time about how she kind of can’t wait to be alone, even though she’d spent the trip dreading the thought of it ending. 

She has a window seat on the plane and immediately rests her head against it, barely moves for the entire six hour flight, falls asleep halfway through for the rest of the time. It’s easy, being asleep—she can block everything out and just concentrate on breathing in, breathing out. She’s getting good at blocking things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 💛 let's all listen to rainbow.mp3 and think of allie, shall we?
> 
> [tumblr](https://new-ham.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/ailiepressman)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Allie," Becca says earnestly through the speaker. "You're doing it again."
> 
> "What?"
> 
> "Not giving yourself a chance. Taking the option away from yourself before even getting to try."

Allie’s in New York for a week before she calls it quits.

Packing all her shit up had been like pulling teeth, painstaking and arduous, and ultimately she and her mom had ended up tossing a few plastic bins together of mostly clothes and essentials, saying that she could always come back for other things over any weekend. West Ham is, after all, only a train ride away.

Afterwards, Allie had lain in her bed, in her room that looked half-bare, half-there, and felt like she was stuck in some kind of in-between, floating between home and her new life. And maybe a little part of her was still back in Martha, too, under the open sky and on the never ending road across middle America. She thought about Harry. If he was back in West Ham, too. If he was thinking about her leaving.

(She knew he was. On both counts. She still left anyway.)

Orientation week and all the meet-and-greet shit is even worse. Allie attends exactly one dorm hall icebreaker event and finds it all so inane and pointless. She doesn’t have anything good or interesting to share about herself. What can she say? She has a dead sister? There’s the fact that she’s just returned from a cross-country road trip with her best friends, but then she’ll get asked all sorts of questions about it, probably. People might even ask to see pictures. She hasn’t even looked at any of them yet.

She finds herself wishing she could stare out a car window at the moving landscape and tune everything out. She’s found herself wishing that a lot, lately. She skips all the other activities the school or the RAs have put together, spends a lot of time on her shitty, twin-sized bed with her laptop propped on top of her knees, deciding whether she wants to start Love Island over again or begin watching Love Is Blind or some other dumb reality show. Her roommate Rachel is barely around; she’s some bubbly pre-med who somehow already has a dedicated circle of friends that she spends all her time with. They made pleasantries the first day and Allie could tell Rachel wasn’t interested in being friends, was just relieved that Allie seemed normal.

Becca texts her asking for an update on how the transition’s going, and Allie straight up lies and tells her everything’s great, she’s making a lot of friends, and then pulls the covers up over her head. It’s well into the afternoon, and she hasn’t gotten up yet. Classes are starting in a few days.

She has a full-blown panic attack when someone comments on her tattoo as she’s heading in to take a shower at the communal stalls, and has to switch the water to ice cold to ground herself back to reality. She hopes the sound of the shower spray is enough to drown out her erratic gasps for air. She thinks whoever it was meant it to give her a compliment, but she could barely make out the words, because all at once this confusing tractor trailer of Cassandra and Harry and sadness and longing and anger (at herself, mostly, plus something that feels suspiciously like heartbreak) slams into her chest, rendering her completely useless for the rest of the time she’s in the shower. She only manages to calm herself down when she grabs her bottle of body wash—peppermint—and holds it up to her nose.

It’s after that she’s forced to admit, with a bitter sort of resignation, that Harry had been right: she’s not ready for school. And more than that, she’s regressing, undoing all the lightness and freedom and progress she’d made while driving across the country with him and the others.

It’s a reckoning that Allie’s now aware she’s been putting off. Deep down, she’d always known that this isn’t the right next step for her. All her weird associations with academia and Cassandra and her applying to NYU in the first place—it’s all mixed up with her grief and loss and general social anxiety and she’s just. So not ready for this. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it until now. Hadn’t wanted to disappoint anyone, least of all not her parents—or, even worse, Cassandra’s legacy. God, what weight that word holds, and Allie hasn’t even thought it until this very moment.

Had Harry known all this? Inferred it, from knowing her, and knowing Cassandra, while she was alive? Or did his own experience enable him to recognize the signs in someone else?

The school counselor she books an appointment with to talk about all this with is exceedingly understanding, especially since it involves death in the immediate family and mental health. She gently brings up that the school’s Student Leave policy covers situations like this. Allie grabs at it like a lifeline, which it is. It’s just for the semester and she’d be expected to return in the spring, but that’s fine by her. Anything to let her sort out her shit before it’s too late—before she goes to an even darker place. Before she ends up the way Harry had, or worse.

She hasn’t spoken to him since the day he left in Arizona. His car was no longer on Becca’s curb when she’d passed it driving with her mom to get packing supplies, but she’d assumed he was in town somewhere.

Their group chat is still active, with Becca, Sam, and Will sending pictures and updates back and forth of their time in LA. Sam’s already obsessed with living in Westwood and Becca’s taken to going around her campus wearing UCLA branded hats and shirts just to piss people off. Will’s job hunting, but he’s optimistic about it, says he might try to do some community volunteer work in the meantime to start growing a network.

The most Allie does is give a thumbs up reaction to each message; Harry does the same, on occasion, which is the only indication she has that he’s still around. And that he’s on good enough terms with the rest of their group to do so. She’s still all mixed up about the whole thing, because he’d been so right about her and college and—God, how had he been able to see into her just like that? What else does he know that she hasn’t self-actualized yet?

His _”I don’t believe you”_ still weighs heavy in her mind. And he’d been right about another thing, too: she doesn’t know what she wants.

Allie lies in bed the day her leave request is officially accepted, and decides that she needs to get her shit together before she starts dwelling on Harry. Figure out what she wants. Figure out who she is.

She cries on the phone when she tells her mom about leaving, feels awful for having her parents shuttle her and all her shit back and forth from the city like this, feels like a fucking letdown as well. But her mom is understanding, tells her it’s completely okay, sounds a little like she’s crying as well when she says, “Your father and I were actually—we were thinking the same thing. That you weren’t ready. But we didn’t want to say anything to you, and we should have. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Allie says, wiping her face with her sleeve and glad, once again, that her roommate isn’t around. So they knew. Everyone knew. But they weren’t the ones to bring it up to her—no, there was only one person who did that. “I think we all have some work to do in the communication department.”

She feels better when she hangs up, with concrete plans to get picked up over the weekend in place.

The day before she’s set to leave, Becca emails her with two video files: the first one is called `ct kids road trip.mp4` and is a cut together film reel of all of all their trip moments Becca had recorded, all expertly shot and edited and treated. It honestly looks like a documentary, or some kind of home video if an expert director did your home video, and Allie’s instantly nostalgic after she watches it. 

She’s also sad, because the difference, she now realizes, is stark. The way she is now, the way she’d been in West Ham since March—that’s not who she sees on video. The Allie in the video looks like the one from the polaroids still stuck to her room wall, or in that shoebox under her bed. Smiling and engaged with the world and the people around her. Only this time, Harry’s there, too, smiling in the background or sitting next to her, nudging her shoulder as they walk along a path, Becca filming them from behind, or attentively listening to Sam give both of them an ASL lesson, or looking at her across a campfire, or laughing with the others in the car as Sam cracks jokes.

The other file is called `harry and allie.mp4`, and Allie stares at it for a long, long time, afraid to click it and see what’s in store.

She swallows thickly, the words burning on her computer screen as she hovers her finger over the trackpad to click, but—God. If she’s trying this thing of being honest with herself, letting herself actually feel what she feels, then she knows she’s not equipped to handle whatever’s in there. She’s not ready. She has other things to take care of, first. She’s a little proud of herself for recognizing that at all.

One step at a time. 

  


**

  


Driving back to West Ham feels almost therapeutic. Both her mom and dad come to pick her up, and Allie cries again when she hugs them, despite having just seen them last week when they’d dropped her off. That was different, though. She didn’t cry then, was trying hard not to deal with reliving the memory of dropping Cassandra off at Yale. She lets herself cry this time, feeling small with their arms around her as her dad runs his hand over her hair and tells her it’ll be okay, they’ll be home in no time.

They’re both in the front seats as she sits in the back, behind her mom, glad to see the Manhattan skyline steadily transforming, flattening out as they cross into the Bronx, then into Westchester County, until they’re finally hooking up to the Connecticut Turnpike and everything is just busy, straight highway that, at this point, looks comfortingly familiar to her. She thinks about Becca’s video, the interspersed clips of just about every interstate they’d driven on, ranging from busy and congested to stretches of flat, completely empty road that went on for as far as the eye could see.

Becca texts her while they’re driving asking for another update, and if she’s seen the videos; Allie ignores her for now. She hasn’t told any of them about her leaving school yet. She will—she’s done keeping things from them, but she just wants some time to settle, first. Continue working out all she needs to work out.

“Cassandra didn’t even know I was going to NYU. I never even told her I applied,” Allie says quietly when they’re almost home. She turns her head away from the window finally, looks towards her parents. Her dad’s hands tighten on the wheel at the Cassandra mention, but her mom catches her eyes in the rearview mirror.

“She would have been proud of you, Allie,” she says firmly, which is...Allie’s not going to lie, it’s something she’s been sort of needing to hear for a long time. But then the chasm of guilt is back, because Allie feels like the circumstances behind her needing to effectively drop out for her first ever semester are entirely of her own making.

“Proud that I didn’t even make it a week in before I had to quit?”

Her parents aren’t used to this thing, where she says what she’s thinking out loud. Neither is she, but it feels good to get it out in the air. Scary as hell and against all her instincts, but still good, in a way that is freeing, even if it’s painful at the same time.

“Allie,” her mom says, turning around in the seat fully instead of looking at her through the mirror. “Your sister would have wanted, above all, for you to be healthy and happy. And the same goes for us.”

It’s like all the emotions she’s spent the past few months preventing herself from feeling return in full force, this time at every single possible moment to make up for all the times they’ve been tamped down, because Allie gets a little teary eyed at that, too, and has to concentrate back on looking out the window. 

“Thanks,” she says softly, and her parents smile.

When she’s back in her bedroom, plastic bins of all the things she’d taken with her stacked in a haphazard pile by the door, she takes a deep breath, surveying everything. The room hasn’t been left half as bare as she’d always imagined—her things are still scattered over her desk, there’s a cardigan hanging on the closet door she’d meant to grab before leaving in the first place. Her life is still all here. She did a half-assed job of trying to leave it in the first place.

The first thing she does before unpacking anything at all is dig under her bed for the shoebox with all the polaroids in it of Cassandra, tapes everything back onto the walls until it’s an actual grid again, looking complete and whole when she steps back to observe her work, everything properly in place.

Then Allie goes downstairs, to where her mom and dad are busy throwing a lunch together for them all, takes another deep breath, and asks, “Can we all talk?”

“Of course,” her dad immediately answers, shutting the fridge door. Allie sits them down at the counter stools and takes a deep, steadying breath. And then she tells them everything that’s been going on with her. Spills her guts, really, the words coming out like vomit once she starts, and then she can’t stop until she’s gotten the whole story out there. And once again, it’s painful and freeing at the same time.

How shocking and unexpected Cassandra’s death was. How she’d scared herself, those first few days afterwards, lying in bed and acting like a shell of a person, how she’d never really stopped being a shell even after she started going to school and everything again. How she was aware, _so_ aware of the people around her noticing her behavior, but still going on with it anyway, because it was easier to shut everything out than deal with emotions and grief and pain. How frustrated she’d been at them for taking Cassandra’s pictures down, in her own room too, how it looks almost like she’d never existed in this house. How confusing it is to feel like she’s sometimes not allowed to mention Cassandra for fear of hurting them, or hurting herself. 

How, despite that, she understands their motive, because being reminded of it on a constant basis is painful, but she’s conflicted, too, because sometimes she has these fond memories and then feels guilty about not being sad, or guilty about having a good time, how those good memories feel like they’re being drowned out by the sadness.

How she’d dreamt of going to New York for a good portion of her life, but only made the jump to actually apply because of Cassandra, how she’s scared of being stagnant without her sister around to push her in the right direction. How she’s terrified, now, of being on her own without that push, on top of dealing with all this latent grief from which she’s never really been able to heal.

She tells them all about the trip too, leaves out all the drama with and details about Harry, but includes it’d helped open her eyes to all her issues and exactly how spiralled and dark she’d been and how her friends had forced her to confront some hard truths about herself that she’d been trying to pretend didn’t exist.

She also tells them about how she could feel herself slipping back into that spiral, back into that dark place, while at school, and how she’s trying, actively trying, to be better now. To get her life and her soul back on track, to be the person Cassandra had known her as. To be the person she’s meant to be—not this hollow shell who’s aimless and drifting.

Her throat almost hurts when she finishes and she has no idea how much time has passed. She kind of sags against the counter when she’s done and her parents, for the second time today, wrap her in a huge hug. Allie presses her face into her mom’s shoulder, feeling drained.

“We love you, Allie,” her mom says, her voice full and trembling, and Allie knows, then, that they hear her, but that they don’t have the right words to address it all and aren’t equipped to do so in a productive way. They’re her parents, but after all, they’re still grieving, too.

“I think maybe,” she says, muffled by the fabric of her mom’s blouse, “I should talk to someone. Like...a professional.”

They tell her that’s a great idea, and that they’ll start looking into referrals from her primary care provider for her. 

  


**

  


The next day, Allie notices that a select few photos that include Cassandra are back up on the fireplace—her high school graduation, where Allie’s got her arms wrapped around her middle and their heads are leaned together. A family portrait that they got done for Christmas one year, both Allie and Cassandra sporting middle school haircuts and fashion. A photo of her mom, years younger, holding baby Cassandra.

“You were right,” her mom says, pausing on her way to the kitchen when she spots Allie studying the framed photos. “We should be able to remember the good things, too.”

“Do you remember that trip we took with the Eliots to the Grand Canyon?”

“Yeah,” her mom chuckles. “God, you were so scared of falling into the canyon, for some reason. Cassandra said she wouldn’t let that happen to you.” There’s wonder in her voice, like she’s unearthed a memory she’d forgotten she had, and Allie gets a little teary for the hundredth time. It’s a good teary, this time. She’s glad her mom remembers more about it than she does.

“Do you still have any of those photos Grandma got developed?”

An hour later, the photo of tiny Cassandra, Sam, and Allie, in her flowery bucket hat, is sitting on top of the fireplace, too.

In the process, they’ve also uncovered a whole swath of photos of Allie and Cassandra as toddlers, from the boxes pushed under the storage under the stairs. Allie’s dad finds the two of them sitting on the floor in the hallway, nearly in tears—good tears—from looking at some of them, including the time they both dressed up as Simba for Halloween, and another time Cassandra had tried to do makeup on Allie using arts and crafts glitter glue.

“I think we _all_ need some therapy,” her dad jokes when he sees them, and God, it’s _funny_ , because it’s true. 

  


**

  


Allie takes the rest of the next day to unpack all her things. While she’s at it, she does a complete inventory and overhaul of her whole closet, as well as everything else in her room.

She does end up finding the bucket hat with the glittery flower, smushed and slightly wrinkled in a box of all her childhood clothes that she sets aside for donation. She keeps the hat, though, and sorts out the rest of her shit that’s too small or too outdated for her now. It’s a less extreme version of what Cassandra had done, because Allie doesn’t do it with quite the same brutalism or practicality in mind. She just looks at what she has, and separates out what she still wants and what she doesn’t need anymore. And if there’s a good memory attached to something, then she keeps that, too.

Most of her clothes and shoes stay, including all the ones she’d snagged from Cassandra last summer. She thinks it’s about time she start including them in her wardrobe rotation—the pink dress with the sunflowers embroidered on it is definitely getting worn before the weather turns to autumn for good. A lot of her old books and stuffed animals and things get tossed into the donations box. It’s tiring work that spans hours and hours, but it feels incredibly good when it’s over. She’s bone-tired and hungry as hell, but her room is finally organized, everything in its proper place.

The star necklace now hangs on a thumbtack next to the polaroid grid on the wall. She’s had time to compare it with her tattoo—it’s pretty spot on, since it’s just the outline of a star. She’d debated for a few minutes about whether she wanted to start wearing the necklace again, but had ultimately decided against it. The tattoo is enough: a permanent good luck charm and reminder that she can carry with her at all times, but only look at if she decides to. And she didn’t have a panic attack looking at it in the mirror, which she was a little (a lot) afraid of at first.

This ‘taking things one thing at a time’ deal seems to be working, so later that night, Allie sits at her desk, in front of her laptop, mouse hovering once again over `harry and allie.mp4`.

This is the next thing she needs to confront. The hardest parts are either over or in progress—she’s out of school, she’s talked to her parents, she’s starting therapy soon, her room is organized and Cassandra’s memory is starting to become easier and easier to bear. Those are things that can be fixed.

Maybe this isn’t one of those things—but that doesn’t mean Allie shouldn’t still confront it. She steels her nerves, then clicks on the video file.

It’s several minutes long and is set to some Kacey Musgraves song playing at a low volume in the background, because this is Becca, of course it is.

It starts with Harry and Allie leaning against Martha in the parking lot of the diner in Pennsylvania, just aimlessly chatting, at a comfortable distance. Then the two of them chatting again at the bean in Chicago, standing even closer together. Allie laughs at something Harry says, has a hand placed casually on his arm. The two of them, sitting knee-to-knee, as Sam teaches Harry ASL. Allie laughs at something, and Harry looks at her and the camera zooms in on him—he's watching her closely, glancing away from Sam's instructions every few seconds to pay attention to her. The two of them with their heads nearly pressed together in the banquet hall in the barn, talking to Bunny the dog’s owner—Harry says something that isn't audible on camera, but Allie remembers it had been flirty, they were playing pretend couple for the man, and Allie just bats her lashes at him, accepting the compliment. She looks happy.

Then they're sitting in the truck bed, breezing down the empty Nebraska road, everything flat and featureless around them. Allie's studying her phone, the story she'd just recorded of all of them sitting, and she keeps on looking over at Harry across from her. The camera pans between the two of them for a little while, their feet bumping against each other. Then it cuts to a quiet moment in the car, when Allie had put her feet up on Harry's legs and they both went to sleep like that. She's asleep in the clip, but he's not; the camera zooms in on his face, looking over her form, a small, secret smile curled on the corners of his lips before he leans his head against the window and closes his eyes.

There are a bunch of other moments like that—where it's just Harry _looking_ at her. From across the campfire in Colorado, as she replies to something Sam is saying, signing along as she speaks. During the sunset in Arches National Park, taken from the ledge below where she hadn't known Becca had been recording them, the glow of the sun hitting both their faces and Harry's hand, reaching out tentatively to brush against hers. The two of them on the trail that morning in Colorado, she's laughing at something he'd said and he smiles at having made _her_ smile.

God, Allie had no clue that Becca had even captured a bunch of these moments, can't recall seeing her around the corner with her video camera out for most of them. Had she done it secretly, or had Allie just been so preoccupied with Harry that she genuinely hadn't noticed? Because for all the times Harry had looked at her, secretly or otherwise, there are just as many where she's looking at him. She hadn't realized she did it just as much as he did—but the proof is all right there. There's a clip that she remembers having recorded herself, too, at the lake while Becca and Sam were swimming; Will does something silly and then the camera pans over to Harry, who's not looking into the lens, but past it, at her behind the camera. And then he suddenly gets shy, or something, because he ducks his head down, the lift in the curve of his cheek making it apparent that he's smiling, pleased with how she's looking at him.

The song fades out, and it cuts to a clip with sound. Allie's not there; it's after she had called it a night, after their group heart-to-heart around the fire in Utah, at that cowboy-themed desert lodge. Becca's recording all of them lounging around the fire and interviewing Harry. Not drilling him or anything, but genuine questions to which he seems to give genuine responses.

"So Harry," Becca asks from behind the camera, "what do you think of the trip so far? Any regrets coming along?"

He chuckles. "Allie's asked me that a few times. Still can't really complain."

"Ooh, let's talk about Allie. What do you think of her? You two have gotten really close."

Harry leans back in his seat. "She's..." He smiles and shakes his head. "She's pretty special. And she's lucky to have friends like you guys."

"Yeah, we are pretty awesome." Next to Becca, Sam snickers.

"How long are you guys going to keep this secret shit up for, by the way?" Sam asks, and Harry's eyebrows raise. He looks around at everyone in the campfire circle.

"You guys know?"

"Let's just say you guys would make terrible undercover agents," Will says. Everyone else shrugs or nods or some kind of combination of both that clearly says yes, they know, they’ve kind of known this whole time.

Harry shakes his head a little, amused. "I mean...I'm not the one trying to keep it a secret," he says, not even bothering to deny it. He also doesn't seem all that shocked at the revelation that everyone knows about them.

"It's okay," Becca says. "We're not mad about it. We can tell you really like her."

Harry presses his lips together, considering. He looks at the camera quickly out of the corner of his eye, then glances away, almost like he’s nervous. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"And...I think you're good for her," Becca adds. "She's had a tough time. You both have, it looks like."

"I think," Harry says slowly, no trace of hesitation or embarrassment in his voice as he shares, "she's good for me, too. I feel like I can breathe around her, you know?"

"You guys are gonna that disgusting couple who are obsessed with each other, aren't you," Will says flatly, but it's apparent that he's joking. Everyone around the fire laughs, then the clip fades to black and the video ends.

Allie sits back in her chair, feeling like an eternity has stretched between when she clicked play on the video and now. Something huge is unfurling in her chest, a million different thoughts and emotions clashing together. The foremost one, though, is the feeling that she has terribly, terribly fucked up.

And—she knew this might be the case when she sat down to watch this, that this might be one of the things she might not be able to fix. Accept the things you cannot change, and all that.

She comes to the rather quick realization, though, that she doesn’t want to accept this.

Because she _had_ him, she had all that—the lightness, the freedom, the happiness that always accompanied her time with him. Even when they were talking about serious things, like death or grief or depression. But then she'd been so afraid of facing her own emotions, so afraid of change—even good change—that she'd convinced her own mind that none of it meant anything. They were...all over the place, she realizes. If she slept with him that first night in Ohio, maybe they would have been more casual. But she drew back, and they started sharing things, getting intimate in ways other than physical, before moving on to being physical. And then once they did, Allie tried to pretend that’s all it was ever about.

And then she expected for Harry to follow suit, for some reason. For him to automatically perform the same insane mental gymnastics she hadn’t even realized she was doing.

She rewinds the video, keeps it paused on a still of her and Harry that morning in Colorado. She has a wide smile, her eyes curved up, the flower in behind her ear that Harry had placed there earlier, her body tilted towards him subconsciously. Then she pulls out her phone, goes into her Recently Deleted album, where she hasn't emptied anything out for months. The last thing in there is the photo Harry had taken of her outside Becca's party, the one she hated so much because she looked so upset, for no reason.

It's like night and day, comparing those two versions of Allie.

And then she'd gotten so in her own head that she'd pretty much sabotaged her own chances of letting herself heal or be happy.

That's another thing that she needs to unlearn. And she might as well start now. 

  


**

  


She calls Becca.

Of course she does—who else can she turn to? And she also has a feeling Becca has a better grasp on her and Harry's relationship than she ever would have imagined, considering all that she caught on film and cut together for that video.

"Did you watch it?" Becca demands immediately when she picks up the phone.

Allie takes a deep breath, and swivels her chair away from the computer so she won't have to face the video paused on her screen anymore. Looks to the wall of polaroids instead, and her bedspread where the pink dress is laid out. She's planning to wear it tomorrow.

"Some stuff has happened," she says to Becca instead of answering the question. Becca can read the tone of her voice, immediately is serious and concerned when she asks if everything is okay. "Yeah,” Allie replies, “yes. Or at least—I'm trying to make them okay."

She tells Becca about leaving school, about being back in West Ham, and all the reasons why. She feels like she can articulate it a little better now, after having gone through it with her parents, and touches on all the things Harry had brought up at the Grand Canyon when he'd gotten pissed, only now Allie's worked things out enough to put them in her own words.

"I don't blame any of you guys, and I love you," she says. "But sometimes it just wasn't very helpful, the way you guys were with your concern. But that's no one's fault—it's just the way things were."

"Allie," Becca says softly over the phone. She thanks Allie for telling her, asks if she's okay, apologizes again for any unintended distress she or the others have caused. Allie tells her it's okay, there's no need to apologize. They can move on, grow from it, hopefully learn something. "So when did you get back to West Ham?"

"Yesterday. And—to answer your first question—yes. I watched the video. Both of them."

Becca's silent on the other end for a moment. "And...what did you think?"

"I think you're fucking amazing, and you're gonna win an Oscar someday. And I think I fucked everything up with Harry."

"You did kind of mess up, there. We all couldn't really believe it was happening, after he had to leave like that."

She's glad for Becca's brutal honesty. It's what she needs to hear. "I was... _using_ him," she says, feeling guiltier by the second as she comes to the realization. "As a distraction, or something. From myself. I don’t know what to do now.”

"Have you tried talking to him?"

Allie swallows. "I haven't. After our last conversation..." She remembers the look in his eye, the way he'd said _'let me know if you work it out.'_ And she has, or she is, or something, but she doesn't know if she deserves to be heard out. Or if he's even willing to, with the way she'd tried to make their whole relationship seem like nothing.

"Allie," Becca says earnestly through the speaker. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Not giving yourself a chance. Taking the option away from yourself before even getting to try."

She bites her lip, realizing that Becca's completely right. "How are you so smart?"

Becca laughs. "I'm the best. Duh. You know, he's in West Ham, too. I've been talking to him."

"Yeah?" She's not all that surprised at that, really. Becca really is the best. Everyone needs someone like her in their lives—including Harry. Maybe even especially Harry. She's glad the two of them are still friends, all the drama with herself notwithstanding.

"Mhm. He's working things out with his mom. I think they finally had it out."

"Is he doing okay?"

"He's real down about you, honestly. He really had it bad for you, Allie. I think you should go talk to him."

She's quiet for a moment. "You think he'd want to talk to me?"

Becca's sigh is long-suffering. "You two are both so fucking tiring. _Yes._ Go and see him. Work it out. I know you can."

She's terrified of the prospect, honestly. But it's something that she needs to do, a critical stop on her tour of self-betterment, or whatever. And if things don't work, then she can learn to move on from that, too. Grow from it.

She really does want it to work, though. 

  


**

  


In the morning, Allie loads her car with all the boxes of things she'd cleared out of her room, and drives it all down to the Goodwill on the outskirts of town.

She passes the Dollar Tree plaza on the way there, and misses Will so intensely that she pulls over to text him—tells him she wants to catch up, she has a lot to tell him, wants to hear about how he's finding himself in LA.

He doesn't respond, because it's still early there, but she makes up in her mind that they're going to have a proper catch-up soon. And she'll tell him about everything, the way she had with Becca. Because that's another thing she wants now—to keep her friends updated and in the know on how she's doing. Because they care about her, and she cares about them.

On the way back, instead of turning onto the road that would lead her back into central West Ham, she takes another turn that takes her to the opposite side of the perimeter, by the cemetery where Cassandra is laid.

She hasn't been here since the funeral, though she knows her parents come every so often to clean off the headstone and lay new flowers on it. They'd come on what would have been Cassandra's nineteenth birthday, earlier in the year; they'd gently asked if Allie wanted to come, but she hadn't even responded.

She replaces the old, wilted flowers that are at Cassandra's headstone with a fresh batch she picked up earlier in the morning. They're pink, mostly, a deep pink that resembles the flowers Cassandra had gifted her the last night of her last ever play in high school, way back when. Sets them gently down right in the center of where it says 'Cassandra Pressman, Daughter & Sister,' so there's symmetrical space on either side, because Cassandra liked things to be orderly like that.

Then Allie sits on the grass, her elbows braced on her knees, and talks. 

About how much she misses her, about how she was mad, for so long, at Cassandra for going and dying on all of them, at herself for never properly saying goodbye, at God and life and everyone for taking her away. And how she's trying to heal from all that, too. She tells Cassandra about how their parents are dealing with it all, how they took her photos down but are now putting them back up. About how they've unearthed that Grand Canyon trip, reminded of it the moment she was standing out on that ledge and looking out at one of the great wonders of the world. About how Cassandra would have loved to see it, along with the sandstone arches, the great Rockies.

When she finally runs out of other things to say, Allie picks up a single flower and plays with it in her hands for a little while. 

"I did two other things, too." 

She tucks her hair behind her ears and rests her chin on top of her knees. No one else is around; it's a Monday afternoon, and she's glad to be alone at this moment. To be able to say what she wants to say out loud, for no one but Cassandra's grave to hear. "I kind of applied to NYU and got in, without telling you or Mom or Dad about it. And a bunch of stuff has happened and I'm not there right now, but the point is—I'll be going there for school. And it sort of happened because of you. Because you always pushed me to be better, even if it made me mad sometimes."

She bites her lip, glances down at the flower in between her fingers and thinks about plucking the petals off one by one, like a little kid chanting _'he loves me, he loves me not.'_ She doesn't do that, just keeps twirling it by the stem. "The other thing is one you wouldn't be as proud of me for. It’s kind of about Harry Bingham. I'm kind of...involved with him,” she says, shaking her head a little. “Well. Maybe not anymore. We'll see how it goes." 

She feels kind of silly for talking about it like this to her sister's grave, where the only response she gets is the rustle of the wind through the trees. But it also feels freeing and nice, like a weight being lifted. "I still think you guys wouldn't get along, but. He gets me. And I think I get him? And he sort of...makes me smile. And I think you'd like that."

She sets the single flower back down gently, back across the bundle laid against the headstone. This is a thing she might do more often, because she feels lighter when she stands and takes a final look at the grave marker before heading back to her car. It's one of those last summer-y days, just before the New England chill starts to set in at the end of September. Nothing like the heat of the sun beating down overhead in Utah or Arizona, or like the sticky humidity of Ohio or Nebraska. It's a familiar type of warmth, and when Allie drives back in towards town limits, she rolls the windows down, feeling glad that she's here.

In her driveway, she takes out her phone again, and takes a deep breath. It’s time for her to face this part, with everything else said and done.

She opens her messages with Harry, but then decides against texting him after seeing their previous conversations. It's a little too incongruous, too abrupt. And too impersonal—she thinks, wildly, about driving straight over to his house and knocking on his door, but impulsivity with Harry is kind of what got her here in the first place.

She settles for an in-between, calls him instead, her heart beating fast. They've never spoken on the phone before, and she has no reason to think he'll pick up. But he does, on the third ring.

"...Allie?" It's hard to decipher his voice over the phone. Maybe a little disbelieving, or surprised. But he'd picked up, which is the important part.

"Hi," she says, suddenly breathless. "I...worked it out. I’m working it out. Is it too late to talk?"

On the other end, he pauses for a few moments. Allie holds her bottom lip between her teeth, waiting. He could say yes, it’s too late. He has every right to say so, and then hang up on her. She wouldn’t blame him at all. And then he says:

“No, it’s not too late.” 

  


**

  


She's wearing the pink sundress with sunflowers embroidered on it when she sees Harry, and something in his eyes goes soft at the sight. She bites her lip, feeling bashful, like a preteen or something. As if they haven't seen all of each other already, but...this is different.

They ended up not seeing each other right away yesterday. Instead they talked on the phone for hours and hours. Nearly all night, in fact. She even ignored Will's text response in favor of talking to him, and had to write him back in the morning with her reply. It had felt both familiar and new at the same time, lying in her bed with her phone pressed against her ear. It wasn't the first time she shared her innermost thoughts with him, but it was the first time doing it without him in her line of sight, which was almost easier, because she could concentrate on his words rather than the way he looked, or the way he might have been looking at her. And his words are important. As are hers.

She told him about school—about how he'd been right, about that and about everything else, like not knowing what she wanted or having difficulty expressing herself. He’d been understanding when he listened, wasn’t arrogant or anything about being proven right. Just quietly accepted it, because he’d been through it all, too. They're similar in so many ways, despite their circumstances being different.

He told her about trying to fix things with his mom. She ended things with Kelly's dad and is figuring out the right way to tell Kelly and her family, since Kelly's parents are still married to each other. Lucy's paternity test results had affected her, too, and she told Harry that she would deal with all of it herself and that he wouldn't have to get involved.

She'd also apparently been so freaked out about Harry suddenly disappearing on a cross-country trip because she assumed he was on some kind of major interstate bender, which was why she was so panicked and adamant about flying him home at the earliest opportunity. But then Harry revealed it was a road trip with other West Ham kids, showed her the pictures and everything, and she was more rational about it after that. He told her what he'd told Allie, about his struggles with school and finding his identity there, after the loss of any sort of routine, about the dark places he'd sometimes go and the panic attacks he'd get.

It was way past midnight when they finished updating each other, and Allie felt raw and open, lying on her bed with her phone cradled against her ear, connected to its charger because it had started dying from how long the conversation was running.

And then there was only one thing left to talk about: them. What they should be doing, where they should be going. Allie had started making apologies, and then he'd apologized too for setting expectations in the first place. Especially without voicing them until the very last second—both of them fucked up, there.

And then she'd asked, "Did you watch Becca's video?" and he said he did and she'd said, "I think that about says it all, doesn't it?"

He'd suggested they meet up tomorrow, in person, at a coffee shop or something and finish catching up then, as if they hadn't spilled their entire guts to each other in the hours they'd spent on the phone. She agreed. She didn’t think she’d see him so soon after coming back, but she just couldn’t say no.

Now, she sits down across from him, crosses her legs, wraps her hands around her mug of tea, trying not to feel awkward. It's never, ever been awkward with him, and she doesn't want to start now, but this is so—this is _different_. This is them trying to take it slow, or whatever. She thinks. There hasn’t been any discussion of _feelings_ or anything quite yet.

"Have you talked to Sam or Will?" she asks, and Harry nods.

"Yeah. Sam told me Grizz is transferring over there next semester. So they're really serious, I guess."

She thinks about nudging her foot against his, or somehow scooting around to press their knees together. She misses that. She's missed him. And God, she does care about Sam and is happy for him, but all she actually wants to talk about is this. Them. She can't even pretend otherwise. Her lip is trembling a little when she says, with her heart entirely on her sleeve, letting it show across her face, "I missed you."

He pauses, studying her for a second, his face softening. "I missed you too." He sounds genuine.

Allie almost sags in relief, even though they'd spent hours talking last night. But they'd barely edged into any of this territory then, too preoccupied with talking about the problems they're both no longer running away from. But then he hesitates, rubs his finger against the grain of the table like he's trying to ground himself. "Just to be clear," he says, "since we don't have the best track record there...what is this?"

She presses her lips together, and then she does nudge her foot against his, under the table. Just a tap of her sneaker against his, twice, a little acknowledgement of their habit. He taps her foot back. "I mean...I was kind of hoping it was a date. If you still wanted that."

Harry lets out a single breath, wets his bottom lip and laughs. "Yeah. I do, I really...and it's not,like, casual...? Because as fun as it was in the middle—" God, it _was_ fun. "—I don't think I could do that end part over again. Like, ever.”

Allie shakes her head, smiling, but also appreciating that he's asking in the first place. "No. No, God, I don't think I'm _capable_ of casual. In any area of my life, actually. I've finally realized that. Maybe a month too late, but still."

"Okay." He sounds glad. "Okay. Yeah. Me too."

"And for the record," she says quietly, "I feel like I can breathe around you, too."

He huffs a bemused breath at the memory, forever captured on video, thanks to Becca. "Remind me to thank Becca. Where would we be without her?"

"Heartbroken and spiraling downwards with no end in sight," Allie says, and they laugh at how true it is.

When they're leaving the shop, with plans in place for another date tomorrow—because they're both jobless and don't have any place to be and are both eager to see each other again—he gets his hand on the small of her back when he holds the door open for her, and she looks up her shoulder at him. They haven't touched each other besides the tap against his foot, maybe on purpose, because they're prone to going from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye. Allie kind of can't help it sometimes, because _look_ at him. But she cares more about making sure they're actually headed towards a good place, this time.

Harry looks less steadfast, leans in close to her ear outside the shop and says in a low voice, "I know we're like, starting over and everything, but I've been dying to know. Are you matching today?"

Allie gives him a scandalous look and smacks him on the shoulder. She _is_ , but she's not going to tell him that. Not yet, at least. "You'll just have to use your imagination."

"Oh, trust that I will."

He lets his hand fall from her back then, but his eyes don't leave her, and some part of her stomach settles. This is familiar, this is _them_. Harry's a natural flirt and she's inclined to go along with it at all times, but he's also tilting his head at her in the afternoon sunlight, and reaching out to brush her hair behind her ear, which isn't something that usually goes along with his dirty comments. Something stirs in her chest that, for the first time, she doesn’t try to run away from or compartmentalize. She welcomes it.

She rolls her eyes and says she'll see him tomorrow. Which she does—and then the day after that, too. And all the following days, every day. 

  


**

  


By the time the snow from the last big storm melts away, Allie's already missing the look of the fresh powder. She prefers warm weather for sure, but she appreciates the bare beauty of the snow, too, especially over a town like theirs. She tells Harry this when they're in her room, packing away the last of her things for the start of spring semester in two weeks, and he calls her crazy, says he's glad the shit is gone. It's a nightmare for driving, plus you have to shovel and salt the roads and Allie rolls her eyes and says he's never shoveled a driveway in his life.

She still hates packing, but it's easier with him around, helping her go through her things. They argue about what music to put on and the whole process takes longer than it should, because she keeps getting distracted when she lets him pull her towards the bed to make out instead of focusing on the task at hand. 

All in all, it only takes a few days, because she has to take less, too, just enough sweaters and pants to last the next two or three months of winter before everything thaws. She's planning to stay in the city over the summer anyway so she can take a few extra classes, get some of the credits she's missing under her belt.

"I think summer in the city's supposed to be, like, gross," she tells Harry while she's resting her head against his chest, his hand tracing under her shirt, against her bare waist. "And my dorm room is a walk-up."

"You can always come crash at mine," he says, lips against her hair. He's rented a fancy high-rise in the city, just barely on the outskirts of the Upper West Side, with great access to Central Park, close enough to get to Columbia—where he'll also be starting in two weeks. Allie had felt bad about maybe influencing him to come to New York because of her, until he'd informed her that he actually put in the transfer paperwork last year, not long after he'd withdrawn from Dartmouth. His father had been buddies with the Dean of Admissions and their name had some pull with the school, plus it was an acceptable compromise with his mother. He just hadn't wanted to tell her or anyone else until it was a done deal. And then he'd rolled his eyes and said, with a smirk, "Not everything is about you, Pressman, God."

"That's such a trek," she mutters, frowning at the concept of taking the subway all the way uptown in the sweltering heat. But she knows she's probably going to end up doing it anyway. "Today I’m grateful for your hospitality." 

She sounds sarcastic, because it’s something her therapist has been telling her to do on the daily—make little notes of things she's grateful for, however big or small or seemingly insignificant. It's kind of a joke between her and Harry, because his therapist has a similar exercise where he lists off things that have positive impacts on his everyday life, even if they’re mundane. The other day, as she was changing to go for a run, he said her ass in leggings had a huge positive impact on him. She said she was grateful for the way his hair looked after sex.

But they do actually do the exercises seriously, too; they help, often.

Sometimes Allie wakes up and is still overtaken with this massive lack of energy and thinks about how much easier it would be to just stay under the covers and never get out. 

But then she'll start making a tiny list in her head that she keeps to herself, like the way Harry had given her the last sip of hot cocoa from his mug yesterday even though she could tell he wanted it, or how her parents have started telling her these stories about how she and Cassandra used to act when they were little that she has no memories of, or how Harry had taken a really great photo of her the other day that she'd immediately posted on Instagram. 

He's dusted off his old film camera after encouragement from Becca, is starting to get back into it, though he only takes mostly pictures of her. Most of them she thinks are boring, but that particular one was really nice. She was sitting out by his fire pit in his backyard, wrapped in a massive blanket and in the middle of telling a story about her and Becca from middle school, had stopped midway through talking because he didn't seem like he was paying attention, and then he'd held the camera up. She's not smiling in the picture, but she looks warm and endeared and a little exasperated, but happy. Content.

So she thinks about shit like that and then gets up. Harry sometimes does the same, calls her first thing in the morning and when she asks what's up, she can tell he's having a tough time when he sighs and says, "Nothing. Just wanted to hear your voice." But he always gets up, too.

She pushes herself upright on the bed, glances around at her room, with her suitcases and plastic bins stacked neatly by the door, her closet looking only halfway empty. On the wall, the grid of polaroids has grown, with several new rows added because for Christmas, Harry got her this neat little polaroid printer that could spit out pictures from her phone using an app. She may have gone a little wild with it. 

There’s photos of their trip—selfies taken with Becca, Will, and Sam, all four of them in front of the bean, landscapes of the Grand Canyon, the arches, the rockies, the flat Nebraska plains. There are pictures of her that Harry had taken: her in the car, her sitting on Martha’s hood in Colorado, looking up at the stars. Her favorite, though, is the blurry one she’d taken of him in the car as soon as he’d woken up, looking bewildered and soft, his hair all messy. He’d protested against her putting that one up, but she insisted.

Allie taps Harry on the chest, and he groans. "Get up,” she says. “We still have work to do."

He tries sliding his hands around her waist again, pulling her back down onto the bed. When that doesn't work, he sits up and starts trailing his lips against her neck, the way she always likes. She pretends for a moment to give in, slides her hands into his hair for; he smiles against her nape, and then she pushes him away by his head. "Come on," she says firmly. "We can do that after. We have decisions to make." She stands, grabs the giant map she'd picked up from the bookstore in town where she's spent the last few months working. She likes it a lot, is thinking about maybe going into literature or something at school. Or library sciences. She'll figure it out, but there's something there.

"Fine," he grumbles, moving out of the way when she spreads the map across her bed. He stretches, and then seems more with it when he asks, "Okay, so where are you thinking?"

"I...have no clue," she admits, looking out at the wide expanse of the country laid to scale before them. "In case you were wondering, I was barely involved with the planning last time."

"Hm," he hums, leaning over the paper. "You know, I never did make it to LA."

Allie scrunches her nose. "Nah. No repeats. Plus I don't know about making that trip this time of year," she says. "And we literally just saw those three over winter break."

"Okay, so let's go somewhere warm, then. Maybe Florida? Or we could lean into it, go further north. Rent a cabin in Maine, or something. Go skiing. Get a whole place to ourselves." He comes up behind her, wraps both arms around her. She leans back into him, and he drops a kiss onto her hair.

Those all sound like nice options. Truthfully, the destination matters little to her. They could go anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many things happened in between the last chapter and me posting this one - it was a journey, but we're all finally here! allie, you beautiful fool.
> 
> [tumblr](https://new-ham.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/ailiepressman)
> 
> thank you to everyone who read through to the end! i treasure all of you.

**Author's Note:**

> it gets more fun, i promise!
> 
> [tumblr](https://new-ham.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/aIliepressman)


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